the dark fire will not avail you
by wafflelate
Summary: Nara Shikako discovers there are levels of trouble so deep she's willing to test a seal that isn't even her own during the most uncontrolled circumstances she's ever been in. Dreaming of Sunshine AU. Uchiha!Sai.
1. prologue — dirge without music

Hi folks! This is all new stuff that was never posted on the Dreaming of Sunshine forum. I'm going to write up to that stuff instead of starting with posting it.

This contains spoilers for, at the very least, everything up to and including the Land of Hot Springs arc of Dreaming of Sunshine by Silver Queen, which hopefully you've already read if you're reading this since this is a recursive fic!

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 **prologue —** **dirge without music**

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 _your death will open the gate_ , whispers the vast monster on the outside of Nara Shikako's universe. Aoba is dying and Shikako is laying on an altar. The animals in the village are dead. The children in the village are dead. The men and the women are dead. The light goes out in Aoba's eyes. The chalice is full to the top with his blood.

Jiraiya had said, 'People only think so many ways,' but the thing trying to crawl through her is hardly _people_. Shikako hadn't always belonged, but that hardly means she's going to share.

The monster has made a mistake, reminding Shikako that there's a gate, that there's an outside. A seal master has what they need with them all the times. A chance, a choice, a hope — if Shikako is going to leave everything behind again, she'll do it on her own terms. By her will, and when that's all she has there's no form a seal can't take.

Aoba is dead.

There is an outside.

Where there is a way in, there is a way out.

The ritual creates the doorway, but Shikako herself is the liminal space. The door sill, the jamb, the head. She's the frame, the hinge, the knob. Something has to be between here and there for the god Jashin to enter, and that thing is Shikako. Of course it is.

A seal is a way to exert willpower on the world, and free of the constraints of chakra and ink Shikako can fit a _lot_ into a seal. Shikako gathers up every scrap of anything she can remember that might apply.

Shikako has a good backing in sci-fi from Before, an excellent imagination, and something like proof, considering her rebirth. Her understanding of the universe — the multiverse — is fundamentally more... messy, more complex, than the Yondaime's ever was. She put the Hiraishin into her single, desperate tear, but the Hiraishin could never work as intended for Shikako. Namikaze Minato was a genius, a brilliant man, but he'd never considered that a time-space technique might go... out of bounds.

There's light and power like a beautiful harmony. It tears Jashin away from her. The door shuts, and Shikako and the monster are both outside. Shikako is pulled in directions she didn't even know existed, through and out and away, and Gelel's music is so loud that it drowns out Jashin's impotent rage.


	2. part 1

_Lots_ of thanks to Math, Pepper, SQ, shelf, and teapot for their help with this! It spent a long time being hot, confusing garbage and arrives in its current comprehensible form only because of their help and support.

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 **the dark fire will not avail you ― part 1**

 _Anyone who has lost something they thought was theirs forever finally comes to realise that nothing really belongs to them._ ― Paulo Coelho

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When the light fades, when the song is quiet again, Shikako is still injured, still laying on the altar in the temple at Hot Springs, but she's _alone_.

There's nothing trying to use her as a gateway. There are no priests. Aoba's corpse doesn't hang upside down from the ceiling, throat slit. The room is covered in dust, not blood. Well, except for her. She's still got that gut wound. Still got Aoba's blood in her mouth, in her hair, down her throat —

Shikako rolls over to throw up and doesn't even care that it hurts like hell to move her torso like that or that she rolls straight off the altar and onto the dusty floor. On her knees, Shikako heaves and heaves, tries not to think about Aoba and his broken sunglasses, and fumbles for her necklace.

The stone is still there. Shikako feels like she's dying, but the stone is still there. Too weak to crawl, she collapses to the floor and just barely misses her own bloody puke. Her hands are filthy and she spares a thought for infection but her vision is grey at the edges, her heart pounding in her chest. She pries the Gelel stone from its wire cage and shoves it without ceremony into her abdomen where the priest's staff impaled her.

Then she passes the fuck out.

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Shikako wakes up some time later feeling marginally better. When she sits up and feels her abdomen, it's covered in gore but healed. It doesn't even hurt anymore. All the blood on her has dried and so has her puke, which is super gross. There's a carpet under all the dust and she's completely ruined it, although a little vindictively she thinks that the temple _deserves_ to be ruined.

Her head spins when she stands up. Blood loss. Gotta do something about that, she thinks. She scrapes the inside of her mouth with chakra and spits. Then she takes a blood pill. Dumps a packet of rehydration powder into her canteen and chugs.

Everything about Shikako feels super gross, and not just physically. She wishes she'd gotten Sasuke to teach her how to set herself on fire using the fire-style chidori. Maybe it could be expanded to cover every inch of her body and the inside as well. Burning alive sounds pretty great now.

But, no. Shikako has to get home. She has intel. She has to find out what happened to Aoba and what happened to the monks. Maybe the seal deleted them from the universe? That would be convenient, but it seems unlikely.

She changes out of her ruined clothing and cleans up barely at all before she changes into a clean set of clothes. Shikako doesn't want to stick around the temple looking for a bathroom or something. She wants to _go home_. The blood-drenched clothing she changes out of are dropped into hammerspace instead of left behind — there's a hole in her shirt that says _stomach impalement was here_ and she doesn't want anyone asking questions about that at inconvenient times. It will be gross to dispose of them later, but hammerspace had kept a severed arm fresh and this isn't exactly worse than that in any notable way.

Outside the temple, the village is just as it was when she and Aoba arrived. All of these people, Shikako knows, are dead. Or, should be dead. Even the weakest civilian, even the kids, grate and press on her chakra sense. It's loud. It _hurts_. Shikako knows she should investigate but blood itches on her skin. The acidic prickle of vomit lingers in her throat. She doesn't even slow down to look around; she just heads south for Konoha.

Hours later, after crossing the border with no trouble, she scrubs herself raw in a freezing creek in the Land of Fire. She's never in her life been so happy to be carrying a full complement of toiletries. She brushes her teeth over and over. She shampoos three times. The wash cloth she uses is just as ruined as her clothes were.

This could be worse, Shikako thinks as she puts on clean clothing. Then she thinks of Aoba and isn't sure.

She has to keep her hair loose because she lost her braid fastener in her rush to escape and save Aoba and the one thing she _doesn't_ have in hammerspace is anything that might be useful for tying her hair back. That's the problem with getting used to having one special, useful hair accessory: you use it every day for months and then when you use it you don't have anything to replace it with.

It's just another thing to feel unbalanced about.

Moving keeps her from having to focus on it. She doesn't make camp. She dumps another rehydrating packet into yet another canteen of water, and keeps going.

When the main gate comes into her sensory range, Shikako is surprised to feel Sai there. There's something... different to his chakra signature. Sai should be a precise swipe of ink being laid down for calligraphy, a purposeful, meaningful mark. Sai still has the feel of ink on paper, but... it doesn't feel like the same ink, the same paper.

Something as simple as being sick can sometimes change how chakra feels, though, and Shikako is just glad someone she _knows_ is at the gate, although she didn't think Sai ever took gate duty. Maybe Tsunade figured out that Sai needs to be kept as far away from Danzō as possible. Maybe Danzō is planning to fish for information on her S-rank again.

The other chakra signal is a stranger, and Shikako doesn't puzzle over it too much as she waits to reach the front of the line. There are a lot of people who might get stuck on gate duty who she wouldn't know by chakra alone, and it's more important to prepare what she is and isn't willing to admit about her mission to Sai. And to whoever else will ask her about it before she can report to Tsunade.

She knows that Sai is at the desk, so she looks at the other person on duty first.

It's Morino Idate. Who should be in Land of Tea, pretending to be dead with Ibiki's help. He has a chūnin vest. Shikako feels the whole world tilt, a sharp and sudden line of wrongness suddenly running through everything.

"Next," says Idate, and looks up at her. "Papers?" he adds, holding a hand out.

Shikako looks at Sai. Sai is on his feet. Sai is wearing a wide-collared Uchiha shirt and he's looking right at her. With Sharingan eyes. The hair on the back on Shikako's neck stands up. He's taller and broader-shouldered and _older_. So is Idate, for that matter, they're both _years_ older than they should be.

"Sai?" she says.

There's no genjutsu; there's too much detail in her chakra sense. Really, why would anyone genjutsu her into seeing this? And who would have done it, anyway?

Something is very, very wrong — an effect of the seal she'd used — and Shikako knows she should retreat. It's dangerous to be here. But Shikako is tired, and slow, and very, very caught up in _Sai being an Uchiha_.

"You're not her," Sai says. He's _angry_ , an expression she's never seen on Sai's face before. Not just angry but enraged, practically. And seeing his face like that... there is something Uchiha about it. There'd been an old woman Itachi killed in the police station who'd looked like that, the moment before she died.

"I'm just me?" Shikako says, confused and hurt and tired. Her eyes slide up, to the Hokage Mountain. Tsunade's head is there, looking just like it should.

Sai must make some kind of signal because the ANBU who are on duty at the gate appear and Idate springs to his feet. Behind Shikako, the ninja waiting to check in tense and the civilians startle, some of them screaming, others tripping over themselves to back up, away from her.

Shikako just wants to go _home_. When she woke up back in the temple, when the villagers were all fine... but of course they should all be dead. Aoba is dead. Shikako didn't save anyone.

The ANBU take her away — she doesn't fight — and she has to consider that she probably hasn't even saved herself. Not in any way that matters.

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She surrenders her clothing easily. In preparation for blending in with civilians for the foreseeable future, she and Aoba had tucked anything important away in her hammerspace seal — an absent minded tucking-away of the Sword of the Thunder God had revealed that the seals on her lightsaber aren't affected by being inside the hammerspace seal. It means she's only losing some kunai, some standard exploding seals, a flare, and so on to the T&I intake officers who order her to strip. Nothing important.

Not that _anything_ feels important at the moment.

The best part is the shower, watched over by strangers who'd been startled to see her scars. Especially the through-and-through over her heart.

"What's your name?" they ask her when she's redressed in clothing provided by T&I, her wet hair loose to soak the back of her shirt.

She could lie, or refuse to answer, but she has nothing prepared and no idea of what sort of on-the-fly lie might be bought. Tsunade's face was on the mountain, so she's probably in charge. Giving in and answering is the path of least resistance.

"Nara Shikako," she says.

"Try again," says the one T&I officer.

"She _was_ wearing the Nara crest," says the other.

Shikako says, "It doesn't matter if you don't believe me."

Then there's a great deal of waiting, and more waiting, and a woman from Konoha's R&D department comes in. Shikako has to pull the sleeves of her shirt up to show off the seals on her arm, has to lift up her shirt and ease her pants down to show the woman the tattooed BOOK on her hip that hides the Book of Gelel.

The woman from R&D looks her over, and shrugs. "Sure," the woman says. "They're seals. But hell if I know what they're for. We'd need Jiraiya-sama for that, I think."

Finally, more waiting, and no food which is fine because Shikako's not sure she'll ever want to eat again, and then she's being led to a new room.

This room hums quietly with seals. When she steps inside, she stops being able to sense more than the faint spark of chakra signatures even when they're just on the other side of the door. She also feels her own chakra retreating, banked until it's out of her reach, slipping through her grasp when she reaches for it out of curiosity.

There's a table and two chairs in the room. Shikako is led over to one of them and left to sit there, and sit, and sit. Eventually she folds her arms on the table and puts her head down to try and pass out. Sitting still is awful. It feels like there must be something she could be _doing_.

She only raises her head when someone takes the chair across from her. Morino Ibiki looks at her. Shikako looks back, slumping down in her chair. It's surprisingly comfortable. The chair, that is, but also being looked at so intently by Ibiki.

The chair is probably _meant_ to make her comfortable, of course, since this is a fairly pleasant interrogation set up, all things considered. The staring... less so. It's a sort of authoritative look. Very serious. It says that Shikako is in a lot of trouble. Which isn't inaccurate, but Shikako is feeling pretty numb to her current predicament.

Ibiki is clearly waiting for her to speak first. Shikako could probably zone out and outlast him, but what would be the point? Anyway, she has questions she wants answered and this is an interrogation room; might as well go for it. The first step to getting something done is getting information.

"Can I see the top of your head?" Shikako asks.

Ibiki's expression doesn't change. "Maybe," he says. "Why?" His tone manages to imply a sort of infinite patience for stupid questions.

"It's been kind of a long week for me." Shikako sighs and slumps a little further in the chair. "How about you show me, and then I'll tell you?"

For a moment he just looks at her, and then at last he reaches up and unties the bandana that covers his head. He pulls it away and Shikako sits up a little. His head is smooth, bald, no scars. She's already been fairly certain, but this is proof: this Ibiki is not _her_ Ibiki. Not the one who administered her first chūnin exam, who questioned her in a room like this one about her supposed interrogation skill, who made a joke about a papercut.

It's still Morino Ibiki. But it also isn't.

"I see," Shikako says, and leans forward until her head can rest on the top of the table between her and Ibiki. "Fuck."

Ibiki is good enough to keep silent while Shikako closes her eyes and pushes back the edge of panic creeping in to her breathing. It's fine. It's _fine_. She's not dead and the Ibiki she knows — Ibiki-taichou — he probably isn't, either. Everyone is fine (except for Aoba) it's just that they're... _far away_.

When the worst of it has passed, Shikako levers herself up, just far enough to rest her elbows on the table and cradle her head in her hands. She wishes desperately she'd been given something to tie her hair back. Having her hair braided like it should be would make this much easier. Somehow.

"Okay, I guess I promised," Shikako says. "But it's not... going to sound _true_."

"Things that are true don't always sound true," Ibiki reassures her. "Do your best to explain."

She huffs out a breath. That actually _does_ make her feel better, even though she knows Ibiki is only saying it to get her talking and build rapport.

"I had a sealing accident. Using the Hiraishin."

"You're right that that doesn't sound true," Ibiki says. He's putting his bandana back on, fixing the illusion of being Ibiki-taichou back in place. "It also doesn't sound related."

"It is related," Shikako says, "but it's hard to explain."

"Why don't we start somewhere easier, then," Ibiki says. "Your name. You told the intake officers that your name is Nara Shikako. We didn't find any identification in your things."

Shikako's ninja ID is safely tucked away in hammerspace, but she says, "It was a rough mission," in explanation instead of producing it.

It's stupid, it's not like her slightly-scuffed identification will magically allow her to get home, but if she hands it over she might not get it back and she wants to keep it. She wants to keep every tangible piece of evidence she has that her home existed. It's not like producing it would prove anything, anyway, given how randomized the security measures are. Plus, well. Admitting she's got hammerspace would probably be a mistake.

"Nara Shikako," Ibiki says carefully, "was a seven year old little girl when she was last seen. She'd be sixteen by now. You're... twelve? Thirteen?."

She's almost fourteen, but the point stands. The Nara Shikako native to this world is surely dead, and even if she weren't, Shikako is too young to be mistaken for her. Of course, that brings up some questions about who Sai meant when he said _you're not her_ , but — but then, Shikako considers with a shiver down her spine, maybe that makes perfect sense.

When she was young, she'd worried about catching Danzō's attention in the worst possible way. Maybe this world's Shikako _did_.

Shikako presses her lips together, considering. This doesn't _seem_ like her displacement should be a hard thing to explain, but really — alternate universes are the domain of science fiction, and Konoha is somewhat lacking in the genre. Also, most ninja don't really have time to read fiction.

When Shikako looks up, Ibiki is looking at her.

He'll wait as long as it takes for her to continue with her explanation. She sits up and then slumps back into her chair. Fine. It's not like Ibiki is _stupid_ , it's just that she's not sure there's words for what she needs to explain in this life and there hasn't exactly been anyone to ask. Senju Tobirama and Namikaze Minato might have known, but they're both dead. Jiraiya had never seemed to have a very keen interest in time-space techniques. Maybe Orochimaru knows, but Shikako doesn't think she'll have a chance to quiz him on physics and vocabulary.

Shikako says, "The replacement technique briefly folds space — reality — and switches the user with some other object. The Hiraishin is um, more direct. It folds space and then punctures it, so the user can move directly where they want to go with no exchange of... physical stuff. Probably."

Ibiki makes an expression that says, _Probably?_

Shikako shrugs a little helplessly. "I used it wrong, so my theory might be wrong. But what definitely happened to me is that I left my reality, my world, and ended up here, in your world. The Morino Ibiki I know has scars on his head. And your chakra feels different."

"So your explanation is that you're Nara Shikako from a version of Konoha where I've had a head injury," Ibiki says.

"I'm Nara Shikako from a world where I didn't die at seven," Shikako says.

"This isn't the strangest theory that's been floated in an interrogation room by someone seeking entry into the village," Ibiki says. It's too bad Shikako doesn't have a more plausible excuse handy than, 'Sorry, I fired up a space-time technique no one really understands and missed the exit for my own dimension.'

"I wasn't really seeking entry to the village," Shikako says. Is it rude to contradict your interrogator?

"Tell me about your mission," Ibiki says, instead of addressing that. "You said it was rough, but you don't have any injuries."

Shikako has no way to know whether or not information on the Akatsuki is considered classified on this version of Konoha. She also has no way to know who might be watching this interrogation, but very much doubts it's happening with no audience whatsoever. This is an alternate universe, but Shikako is still a Special Jōnin of Konoha and she has to keep ahold of that. She's going to get home.

Shikako says, "Even if it was a different Konoha... it was S-rank. I can't tell you much."

"I appreciate your commitment to information security," says Ibiki. His tone is so much like Ibiki-taicho talking about that papercut that it makes Shikako crack a smile, just a small one — and her expression surprises him, she thinks, although it's hard to tell with Ibiki when his expressions are genuine and when they aren't. He prods gently, "What _can_ you say?"

"There was a seal, it was July, I was trying to escape."

"Your team?" Ibiki asks. His face is totally neutral. A blank wall, impossible to read.

She doesn't want to think about this or deal with it and Ibiki has probably already guessed the answer and is just trying to get a reaction. And thinking about Aoba — it makes her vision white out for a second, makes her breath catch. A dangerous reaction, the kind of reaction that could kill her if this were combat. And stupid, too, because it's not like she's never seen anyone die before.

"My partner didn't make it," she manages, and at least her voice is level, factual, almost unbothered. Strangled down to the slightest of minor tones, the way one might talk about weather ruining a planned picnic.

"That's always very hard," Ibiki says, and his expression opens, just a bit — sympathy. Understanding. "We've all been there," he adds. "They'd be happy you got out alive."

They made me drink his blood, she thinks about telling him. He died thinking I'd die, too.

"I might be willing to talk to Tsunade-sama," Shikako says instead.

"I'll see if she can pencil it in." Ibiki shuffles some papers. Opens a file that may or may not be for show. "No one thought that Shikako-chan would be a field ninja," he says. "She was always behind her classmates in physical activities."

Shikako blinks at him. "I got better at chakra enhancing as I went through the Academy. I had to learn to do it consciously."

"No one has to learn to do that consciously," Ibiki says.

Shikako shrugs. " _I_ did."

Ibiki asks a bunch more questions about her early life — her academy years, her time before that. She answers them, because he's probably going to check with this universe's Shikaku to see if they match up and she's curious to see if they will. Besides, none of it is dangerous information to give out, really.

Eventually Ibiki leaves. When he opens the door, chakra floods into the room and into her. The ambient chakra had been sucked out of the room so gradually that she hadn't noticed, but now that it's back Shikako sucks in a breath and coughs, feeling like she's choking for a moment. Ibiki notices, of course, and turns back, letting the door close behind him again. Shikako's chakra is immediately suppressed, but the chakra in the air lingers.

"I'm fine," Shikako says, evening her breathing out through sheer force of will. "It's just the chakra in the air."

"The... chakra in the air," Ibiki repeats. He probably thinks this was some kind of weak stall, or the beginning of an escape plan or something — a less careful person might have lingered with the doorway open. But really it's just slightly embarrassing.

"Yeah. It's my hypersensitivity. I used to do it as a baby, too?"

Ibiki turns and leaves. This time when the door opens Shikako holds her breath so she doesn't get distracted.

The faint pinpricks of chakra she'd been sensing flare into recognizable signatures with the door open. Sai is there. And chakra that feels like her father. And Inoichi.

The door closes.

Eventually she returns to trying to sleep, and Shikako isn't her brother but nothing is on fire or currently trying to kill her, so slipping into a light mission sleep with her head pillowed on her arms the way Shikamaru used to slump over his desk in the Academy is both easy and satisfying.

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When she's roused, it's by the door to the room opening, breaking the circuit of the seals, just like when Ibiki left, and Shikako chokes even as she grabs for her chakra and shoves as much of it as she can into the stone lodged in her abdomen. She doesn't know if shadow state could actually help her here, but it can't _hurt_. It had let her cross the threshold of the Jashinist's seal.

There's no audience in the room next door this time, no small sparks of power hovering by the observation window that to Shikako looks just like the other four walls. It's just her visitor, Tsunade, who leans against the wall instead of sitting down. Seeing Tsunade should be reassuring, but it's... not. Tsunade's chakra is banked low by the room almost immediately, tucked away, but Shikako has time to feel it and it feels _wrong_. Hard. Brittle.

Shikako straightens up and pushes her hair out of her face. "Tsunade-sama," she says.

"I don't have long, so get to the point." She looks at Shikako like Shikako is something she's considering disposing of — but not in an interested way, because she also looks at Shikako like Shikako is a dull waste of time.

Not something she's seen on her own Tsunade's face.

"I was investigating an S-rank threat," Shikako says, "on your counterpart's orders."

It bothers her that Tsunade stands with her arms crossed, looking unimpressed. It bothers her that Tsunade isn't dressed the way Shikako would expect. Her clothing is a little more combat-ready. She isn't wearing kunoichi heels. Her hair is loose.

"And why would I send you?" Tsunade asks.

The question stings a little, but Shikako knows she probably doesn't look like much, really. She'd arrived unarmed. Currently she's wearing sweatpants and had to roll the waist a few times to make sure the elastic would keep them up — they're prisoner-issue, the same kind she'd seen Tayuya wearing. No drawstring, since that could be used as a weapon, but clearly no one had been quite prepared for a slightly-built fourteen year old.

"I'm a special jōnin," Shikako says. "I brought you Sand's uncensored file on Sasori of the Red Sand. I found the information that lead to my last mission."

Tsunade says, "Clearly not very good information, if it got your mission partner killed."

And that should sting. That should make Shikako have to control her breathing carefully, should make her vision tunnel a little. But... it just makes this woman in front of Shikako feel obviously fake. Like someone wearing an inaccurate transformation jutsu and acting wildly out of character. The illusion of familiarity slips away. Ibiki was close enough that she couldn't tell, but this Tsunade could never be Shikako's Tsunade.

"There were some unavoidable complications," Shikako says, her voice perfectly flat.

"There always are," Tsunade says. Where Shikako's Tsunade would be reassuring (or _maybe_ frustrated) this Tsunade is callous and bored.

In a conversation with a ninja she'd come all the way down to T&I to try and get information out of, Shikako would expect her Tsunade to at least feign some sympathy.

Shikako says nothing in return, looking up at Tsunade and thinking how odd Tsunade's body language is. It's an academy basic to mimic the body language of the person you're speaking to, to be open if they're being open, but Tsunade is closed-off. Arms crossed, across the room, uninterested."Do you want my information or not?"

"Well. Let's hear it." Tsunade waves a hand like she's encouraging Shikako to get on with it. "The information that you think is so important."

On one hand, this does not fill Shikako with a desperate need to deliver her likely very important information to this Tsunade. On the other... things are similar enough that Tsunade is still Godaime, that Ibiki runs T&I, that Sai's chakra feels like Sai's chakra. The Naruto here is probably still basically Naruto and still in basically the same danger.

These people stopped being characters to Shikako a long time ago. It's not her responsibility to save this version of Konoha, but that doesn't mean she can just... turn her back on it when she could help so much. But she's also not going to give this Tsunade this information for free, not while being held prisoner and being looked at like _that_.

"I know who all the members of the Akatsuki are," says Shikako. She leans forward. "And I know what their leader's goal is."

"That... would be important, useful information," Tsunade says, "if it could be trusted."

"They have a long history," Shikako says. "Much farther back than when our realities probably diverged. The leader and his goals will be the same. Of course you'd have to double check it, but you'd be doing that legwork even if I _were_ a trusted source."

Tsunade studies her, carefully, slowly, and her expression slowly changes until she's looking at Shikako like Shikako might be something that could be torn open and dissected. Each piece of her held up to the light to be examined and then on to the next part, every shadowed place stripped away until her every secret is laid out anatomically.

"You do have a point." Tsunade steps away from the wall and just having her get a foot closer sends a chill down Shikako's spine. "But you're going to tell me and my people what we want to know whether or not you want to."

She thinks it's intent, at first, Tsunade's feelings leaked into the air via near-imperceptible levels of projected chakra. But the air is still just as chakra-dry as always. There's no additional power to this feeling, just body language and tone.

"I don't know what you were planning on asking for in return for this information," Tsunade continues, "but you won't be getting it. We don't negotiate with prisoners."

Without saying anything more, Tsunade leaves. Shikako stores more chakra away in her stone, and doesn't even consider trying to make a break for it right then — _maybe_ she could get out, but she wouldn't rate her chances of actually getting away from any version of Tsunade as very good.

Shikako is so tired and in so much trouble. She puts her head down again and closes her eyes.

But she can't sleep.

With her head down, this time with her forehead pressed flat against the cool surface of the table and her arms folded over her head like a loose tent, Shikako tracks the pinpricks of chakra she can sense outside the room.

Should she be able to feel them? She gets the impression that the room is supposed to cut off all of her ability to sense things outside the room. The air the the room is dry of chakra, her own chakra ducks her grasp when she reaches for it, and she can't sense any natural chakra. Just the movement of people. Lingering in the observation room to keep watch on her, coming and going in the halls, what feels like it might be someone being physically carried into an interrogation room down the hall.

Maybe it's just her strong chakra sense. Maybe Tonbo-senpai would be able to sense this, too. The T&I department moves around Shikako's room like a galaxy turning in some bizarre but ordered pattern.

The people feel like stars.


	3. part 2

Per usual, thanks to Math, Pepper, SQ, and Teapot for their help with this and congrats to Shelf for during all those projects in. And thank you to everyone who reviewed! You can all find me on tumblr under the same username.

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 **the dark fire will not avail you ― part 2**

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* * *

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Shikako's sense of time is off, firstly on account of being locked in a windowless, featureless room and secondly because zoning out and tracking the movement of people in the building around her is a much better way to spend her time than being aware of how long she's been held in this room. It doesn't really matter how much time has passed, though, and worrying about it is just letting this universe's version of Tsunade win.

Eventually people return to the observation room. Shikako wonders, idly, if there's some way to tell who they are — the hint of chakra that she can sense doesn't have the sort of variety she's used to, the kind her mind associates with texture and color. It's only a sort of brightness setting that sets one person aside from another.

Tsunade had been fairly dim. Ibiki had been a sort of midrange. Maybe the difference has something to do with chakra range, or chakra control? But while she's a prisoner, there's no way to _test that_ or see if she can learn to recognize people by how bright their signature is, so it's a useless thing to think about.

Better to try and return to pondering what all exactly she'd put into that teardrop-seal and how she might see the seal again and figure out how to reverse it so that she can go home. Returning to the temple in Hot Springs is probably the first step, although Shikako _really_ doesn't want to and doubts she'll find anything. If there'd been a seal there powerful enough to send her from one universe to another, she thinks would have sensed it while she was there.

But, then, she had been pretty preoccupied with vomiting blood and passing out and everything. So maybe not. She'll have to check to make sure.

One of the brighter people in the observation room moves. It's very, very hard not to sit up and look at where the person is as they move out of the observation room and around the corner to the door of Shikako's interrogation room, but Shikako knows that giving away that she can still sense something would be stupid.

The doorknob turns, and Shikako sits up to look at the door.

Shikako suspects that there's some kind of key-in system at work in the seals on the doorknob, so that the last person who opened the door from the outside is the only one who can open it from the inside, and she wonders what happens if you kill that person while they're in the room, although she doesn't seriously consider doing so. This isn't her village and these aren't her allies, but she'd really prefer to escape without killing anyone and without having to break the seals on this room.

The door opens. Chakra floods in and Shikako holds her breath because it's easier. She manages to get more chakra into the Gelel stone, but more importantly her visitor is _Sai_ and she gets a much better feel for his chakra.

The Sai she knows is a deliberate stroke made with a steady hand, the rasp of the brush against the paper as the mark is made. This Sai is different. It might be the same mark, but it's completed, the brush lifted, and now one must guess if the ink is dry or if it will smear at the slightest touch.

Is that better? Is that worse? Does it mean anything at all? Shikako has never been sure if her impressions of people's chakra had any informative value, and Tonbo-senpai hadn't been much help. _It just feels like chakra_ , he'd said, so she'd thought maybe she was just imagining it. Maybe it was only a reflection of her opinion of a person.

The door closes. All the chakra slips away and Shikako can breathe again.

Sai is still an Uchiha, dressed in dark blue. Unarmed, probably because he's entering her interrogation cell, and carrying a wrapped ration bar in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. His hair, she sees now, is a little longer than she'd expect. He has a scar along one forearm that her Sai doesn't have.

"Hello. Ibiki feels he wouldn't get much more out of you, and also that you will appreciate transparency," Sai says. He sounds like her Sai, mostly. He places the ration bar and the water down on the table. "These are for you. I hope you will speak with me, but we could sit silently instead. Or I could stand."

"You... don't have to stand," Shikako says. She can practically hear the words in Ibiki's voice, explaining why Sai would be a better interrogator than Ibiki, who Shikako supposes she was probably not responsive to in the right way, although she wouldn't have minded more interviews with him.

The fact that she's able to think of a conversation with Ibiki in a room like this as an interview is... probably why they switched her interrogator.

"I apologize for my anger at the gate." Sai says, sliding into the chair across from Shikako. "I leapt to conclusions, and was not... hospitable. And then you were arrested, although you surely would have been arrested even if I had been very welcoming."

"It's fine." Shikako reaches for the water and the ration bar, not hungry but hell if she's going to seem to reject the food. The water bottle is cold to the touch, wetting her hands with condensation. The ration package crinkles. "I wasn't really thinking clearly, so you're right that I..." Shikako trails off, looking at the ration bar she's holding.

Sai waits a little longer than most people would for her to continue, and when she doesn't he asks, "Is this not your preferred flavor?"

"No one has a preferred flavor of ration bar," Shikako says absently. She sets the water down and turns the ration bar over, studying every line of the packaging. "Where did you get this?"

"It was provided for me," Sai says.

It's an Akimichi ration bar. Sai is an Uchiha, apparently, so _of course_ it was 'provided' for him. He must be under orders not to say by who, but... the list is short. Maybe it was Ibiki's idea, of course, but... this universe's version of Inoichi would have the clearance. And Shikako is fairly sure that this universe's version of her father had watched her talk with Ibiki.

"Thank you," Shikako says. She opens the ration bar, and the crinkling of the foil it's sealed in is just like the ones from home. It's weirdly reassuring.

"I only carried it into the room, but you're welcome," Sai says. His body language is perfectly blank — sitting straight in his chair, his posture perfect, his hands resting idle in his lap — which Shikako is pretty sure is Sai's way of showing stress. "You did not ask, but my name is Uchiha Hikaku."

"Oh," Shikako says. She hadn't considered that Sai might have a name other than 'Sai' although... of course he would. "You probably already know, but my name is Nara Shikako."

"Yes," Sai — still 'Sai' — says, slowly. "I heard. I must ask you some questions. Ibiki had a list."

"Sure," says Shikako. She breaks off part of the ration bar and pops it into her mouth. It doesn't taste _good_ , exactly, but it tastes familiar.

Sai pauses. "His list wasn't good," Sai says. "It would be a waste of my time. And your time. I have my own questions."

Ibiki must be one of the people in the mirror room watching, and Shikako wishes she could see his face. It's probably priceless, and she's jealous of whoever is in there with him.

"You can ask me whatever you want," Shikako says.

He looks more carefully at her now, a tension settling over the room. A short pause that drags out into something meaningful.

Sai asks, "How do you master death?"

Maybe the audience thinks it's a sign of Sai blurring the lines between herself and the native Shikako, but...

"The wand, the ring, and the cloak," Shikako says immediately. And then she struggles for a moment with the translation — _she's_ never actually told anyone this story in this life — and adds, "The Deathly Hallows."

Sai leans forward. "Tell me the story," he requests. He looks almost hungry for it. Ibiki must be _dying_ in the observation room.

it's lucky for Shikako that the story is easy to remember, although that was probably by design. Sai's version of her would have had to remember it off the top of her head to tell it to him, after all.

"Three brothers come to a river and win boons from the god of death by cheating. Each asks for a different tool," Shikako says. "The eldest wanted a powerful weapon, but was murdered for it by a stronger man. Death claimed him. The middle brother wanted a ring to bring his dead lover back to him, but she was still cold and dead and he killed himself. Death claimed him, too.

"The youngest wanted a cloak that could hide him even from the god of death, and he used it to live a long life. He and Death met again as old friends."

Short, specific, and not subversive. Of course she'd pick the Tale of the Three Brothers to tell Sai. Shikako skipped some of the details — doesn't know how she translated wizards cheating death to _ninja_ cheating death, or if maybe she just described wizards to Sai or what — but it's clearly satisfied Sai. He sits back in his chair.

"The name you used for me at the gate," says Sai. "Is that what you know me by?"

Shikako says, "Yes," but doesn't elaborate because if Sai wanted their audience to heard the name 'Sai' he would have said it himself. Shikako can't actually imagine why that'd be a problem, but this isn't the time or place to dig.

"How did you meet him?" Sai asks. Without letting her reply, he continues on to say, "How could we possibly have met?"

"You were assigned to a mission with myself and my teammate to the Land of Stone," Shikako says. "To fill out our team, because our usual third member was... not available."

"One mission," Sai repeats.

This is, it seems, a disappointment to him. But Shikako can fix that! She reaches for her water.

"No, that's just how we met. You came with us to Land of Birds, too, and then... a mission to Land of Moon." Normally you'd never just tell your mission history to someone while sitting in an interrogation room, but that seemed like a non-issue. None of the missions were even classified and none of them had happened here.

"We were occasional teammates, then."

Shikako frowns at him. "We were friends. We'd have after-mission team dinners. You came to Naruto's going away party."

"I... attended a party."

"Yep."

"But my name was..." Sai trails off, not completing his thought.

"It was," Shikako agrees. "It might have been a code name or something? We were under the impression that you were, uh, checking up on us or something during that first mission. Looking out for... village interests. Or something. We'd just gotten back from a mission that went way worse and way weirder than normal."

"You're referring to Shimura Danzō," Sai says bluntly.

Shikako is a ninja, so she doesn't do a spit take, but she does swallow a little more carefully than usual and put her water down.

"I never had any proof," Shikako says. "And I couldn't risk asking you directly."

"I was informing on you." Sai is bitter, eyes flat. "And you knew it. I was your enemy. Why did you look pleased to see me at the gate?"

"You aren't my enemy," Shikako says firmly.

"You — _my friend_ — she would have disposed of me immediately if she knew I was betraying her, even after working with me for years. Especially after working with me for years."

"No, she wouldn't have," snaps Shikako, a little too fast and loud to be anything even approaching calm. "Not _you_. You're important."

She doesn't like to think about that side of herself, the ruthless part of her that decided that the lives of three hundred or so Uchiha were worth less than getting to stay safe and sound with her own family. The part of her who killed three genin in the Forest of Death because it was easy and she had really, _really_ needed something to be easy. But she can say with certainty that if she'd recognized Sai as Sai — and clearly she had — she would never have chosen her life over his. Naruto will need him.

Sai stares at her.

Shikako looks back. And has to push some hair out of her face. Stupid hair.

Sai says, "She'd say the same thing. But why am I important? What made _me_ important?"

"You just are," Shikako says. "That's how friendship works. You decide the other person is important and you follow through."

"I did not follow through," Sai says softly. There's a slight slump to his shoulders. Defeat.

"She's dead?"

"Yes."

"And..." Shikako swallows. "And how did she really die? Not the way Ibiki thinks, right?"

It's a morbid question to ask, and not really one that Shikako wants answered, but Sai led her to it. He practically begged her to ask it.

"She thought the only way to have Danzō removed from power and therefore be safe from him was to out him as a bloodline thief." Sai's gaze has drifted down, looking at his lap. At his hands. "So we attacked him. In public."

She's always had that plan on the backburner, a sort of last-resort blunt-force move to be pulled out in the event she was sure to die whether or not she made a move against Danzō... of course an alternate version of her would have the same idea.

"The kamikaze protocol," Shikako says. "I'm sorry it came to that."

Sai's eyes widen, just barely. "That's what she called it," he says, "but she would never tell me what it was from. What she meant for it." His brow creases. "Is it a metaphor?"

Oh.

"I... don't really remember what it's from anymore," Shikako says. "It's not a metaphor, though." She doesn't know how to explain, really, hasn't prepared a fictionalized version to explain the origins of a term she hadn't really thought she'd ever use out loud anymore.

"But what does it _mean?_ "

Is it better to not tell him? To leave him blaming himself? Probably not.

"It means she didn't think either of you were going to survive," Shikako says, and keeps her voice soft and gentle in recognition of how very, very hard this will be to hear. "It means... she might even have thought that her death was necessary to succeed, and she thought that that was a fair trade."

Sai is just... watching her. Yeah, okay, maybe knowing isn't better. But it's definitely not worse, at least.

"You already had your sharingan when you confronted Danzō, didn't you?" Shikako prods.

Sai nods, a jerky and unnatural movement. He looks as though he couldn't speak even if he wanted to.

"She knew what she was doing. She wanted you to live." Shikako looks down at the table, at the empty ration bar wrapper and half-full bottle of water. She can't say much more than that. She won't give away Uchiha clan secrets to an unknown audience.

Her hair is in her face again. It always is. She'd almost have preferred they'd shaved it off instead of having to leave it loose. She tucks it back as best she can and feels ridiculous. Maybe when she gets out of here she can use a strip of paper and a pen from her hammer space and make something that will at least keep it in a low ponytail.

"She always kept her hair braided," Sai says — almost suddenly, after what felt like a long and horrible pause.

Shikako looks back up at him. "I usually do, but I..." Shikako trails off. She doesn't want to get into what, exactly, happened to the braid fastener that Ino got her.

"I will bring a hair tie for you," Sai promises.

"Thank you," Shikako says, and doesn't bother hiding the relief she feels. It's a small thing, the smallest, but she kind of desperately needs it.

Sai nods and then he's leaving, taking her empty water bottle and the ration wrapper with him. When the door opens, Shikako feels that Ibiki is definitely one of the three people in the observation room. The other two are probably Shikaku and Inoichi. A fourth person is joining them, the tense, fragile chakra of this universe's Tsunade trailed by several ANBU-suppressed chakra signatures.

The door closes.

Shikako waits, tense and trying not to look it, and then waits some more.

An hour or so later, Tsunade comes in and Inoichi follows her. Tsunade takes up her place leaning against the wall, arms crossed. Inoichi...

He looks like he should, and feels like he should, except for... the seals. He's missing his usual arm guards, clearly to allow for the seal array sprawled across his hands, up his arms, disappearing under his shirt. Given that his chakra isn't suppressed, Shikako can guess both what the seals do and why he's here fairly easily.

Her itching need to get a look at the seals on Inoichi and how they interact with the seals at work in this interrogation cell is tampered a _lot_ by Inoichi's obvious purpose.

Ibiki had eventually gotten around to asking, _Can you prove it?_ and Shikako had said she probably couldn't, but maybe she should have pulled out some things from hammerspace and tried anyway. She might even have pictures in there, left over from moving downstairs to make room for Kino. Most of her array of childhood photos and team candids hadn't made it back up on a wall.

It's too late for that now, obviously.

Tsunade doesn't say anything, just watches as Inoichi comes to stand next to her chair.

Inoichi says, "I hope you'll cooperate." He sounds perfectly neutral, which on Inoichi means he's probably not very pleased to be doing this.

Shikako can't say she'll actually cooperate. She wants absolutely nothing to do with someone messing around in her memories, even if it will prove her story true, and is pretty sure fighting it will be an uncontrollable instinct. On the other hand, Inoichi has chakra and she doesn't. Physically resisting is impossible unless she wants to try out shadow state while the door is closed and Inoichi and Tsunade are in the room.

So Shikako says nothing, merely pushing her chair back and turning to face Inoichi.

"You'll want to turn the chair, too," Inoichi says, with just that hint of that good-as-an-uncle comfort Shikako is used to. "People tend to need the support of the chair back to keep from ending up on the floor when the technique ends." Manipulative, yeah, and maybe partially a test to see if she'll react to it, but not unkind. Shikako would, after all, like to avoid falling out of her chair.

"Just do it," Tsunade orders. She sounds even less happy than earlier and Inoichi's neutral expression cracks just a little, the corners of his mouth turning down.

Shikako doesn't really think that's necessary or that Inoichi will start in the middle of her moving the chair — and even if he does, it will be worth it to spite Tsunade. Shikako stands, turns the chair, and sits back down without even looking at Tsunade, whose orders are meaningless.

Inoichi does hand seals for a technique Shikako has never seen before while she's moving the chair and he has his hands on her head the moment she's seated, taking her off-guard.

She's so tired. She's _been_ tired and working through it as best as possible. It's not a physical thing, it doesn't even seem to have anything to do with the Jashinist's life-draining seal, it's just... there are so many thoughts that hurt now. So many fresh memories with edges Shikako can only just stand to skirt around. The worst of them is the sight of Jashin, the feel of it, the way it had twisted through her and around her.

Inoichi's mind reaches for hers and it's an intrusion. A violation. She can feel the chakra of the technique, the spun-sugar barbed wire feel that echos Ino's chakra so closely. It's not the poisonous hot oil that Itachi's chakra was or the rotting slime of Jashin, but it hurts just the same and Shikako _hates it_.

"No!" she says, although she's not sure if she really manages to say it out loud. Shikako doesn't have any chakra to resist, it slips through her fingers just like before, but she'd defeated a _god_ yesterday without a drop of chakra. What is the mind if not the domain of the will?

 _ **NO.**_ It thrums through her. It shakes lose some of Inoichi's hooks and handholds, and Shikako knows that her mind is full of things with teeth and claws and there are places to hide, places so deep Inoichi will never be able to tell that anything was ever in her brain at all.

She will not give up her secrets.

She will not let this happen to her _again_.

The sweet-sharp threads of Inoichi's chakra pull back. The technique ends. Inoichi's hands pull away from her head. Shikako does not slump back into the chair — she continues sitting up straight, back tense.

"Well?" Tsunade asks.

Inoichi shakes his head. "She's recently gone through some kind of mental attack. I won't read her without the department's equipment."

 _That's_ not an answer Tsunade likes. "The equipment might be damaged by her seals," Tsunade says. "What if I don't care about if she's hurt or not? It's not like she's one of ours."

" _I_ wouldn't come out of hurting her unscathed," Inoichi says flatly. That's probably the most rude Shikako's ever heard Inoichi be with anyone, ever, and certainly the closest to insubordination Shikako imagines he can get without crossing the kind of line you can't come back from.

"Fine," Tsunade says. "We'll wait for Jiraiya to get here."

They leave, and Inoichi still looks unhappy. That's all very interesting, and Shikako should maybe be worried about Jiraiya, but instead she's just very very glad to be alone.

There's no way she's going to be able to sleep, but she's tired of sitting in this chair. Stiff. Shikako stands and starts through her normal morning stretches, the ones her mom had started teaching her and Shikamaru, moving through them slowly until her pulse slows and the tension leaves her.

She'd had no idea she could do that. That she'd be able to resist. She has no idea if she'll be able to do it again when they break out the special Tobirama-designed technique amplifying equipment, and she really doesn't want to find out. She'll have to escape. Maybe when Sai brings her a hair tie.

.

* * *

.

Shikako abandons the idea of sitting in the chair. She hates the chair. She also hates that she's been consistently watched, although _knowing_ about her audience is better than _not_ knowing. Shikako really needs some privacy and about 16 hours of dead sleep and to be home or maybe in Sasuke's apartment but definitely anywhere but here.

She'll settle for lying on her back on top of the table. If she were an adult, it would surely be too short for that, but Shikako is just shy of fourteen and she fits quite neatly. When she folds her arms behind her head her elbows hang off the table. She can't sleep, not with a brain that feels like raw, overworked dough, though at least the ceiling is satisfyingly blank. It's not as great to look at as the mountain vista the Fire Temple monks had provided, but it's useful in its own way.

This is the longest wait yet. Idly, a few times, she comes out of her vacant daze to wonder if Inoichi and Tsunade had argued, if this universe's Nara Shikaku had an opinion he'd cared to lodge. Once, her mind accidentally snags on the knowledge that Naruto had lost his first friend less than halfway through the Academy, that Sasuke probably doesn't remember native Shikako's name, and that Hatake Kakashi has probably never had even an idle, passing thought about her.

She still has Sai, sort of, but she's going to use him to escape. It leaves a bitter taste in her mouth, so she tries to plan it without thinking about what kind of effect it will have on Sai. Sai, who always deserves better than she can give him.

The door opens, chakra rushes in. Tsunade and someone Shikako doesn't recognize.

Of course, she shouldn't have assumed Tsunade would actually just give up like that. Shikako propers herself up on her elbows to look down the table at the Tsunade and her new interrogation.

The interrogator is a man with orange hair in a high ponytail, bangs parted in the center. He has chakra with the same kind of spun and spooled feel that all Yamanaka have, but... His chakra is cheap wire, kinked and tangled, twisted and weak. He has the same dead-eyed look that Sai had had when she and Naruto met him, the one that had only really faded during their time in Land of Birds.

None of this exactly inspires confidence.

Neither does the lack of observers in the mirror room, all of them having left moments ago, presumably ordered out.

Shikako lowers herself back down to lay on the table, not feeling cooperative this time.

"Fū, get her in the chair," Tsunade says. This time she doesn't go to lean up against the wall, presumably because she doesn't intend to have this session lead by a former ROOT agent. Well, hopefully former — Danzō is dead, after all. Maybe this version of Tsunade has kept it up in one form or another, or just transferred people like Fū to ANBU.

Fū crosses the room in a handful of quick strides, grabs the front of Shikako's shirt, and hauls her up off the table like she weighs nothing. Shikako can feel the chakra in his limbs in detail, can feel the way his chakra-reinforcement bolsters his muscles.

But he makes a mistake.

Fū's not-quite-refined chakra control isn't _so_ clumsy that he couldn't, under normal circumstances, instinctively reinforce her shirt a little when he grabs her. Except that the room wicks the chakra away almost as fast as Fū can put it out. Shikako's sure that Fū has never been to the Dead Wastes, and if he's been in a room like this one previously has never had the exemption seals on before.

Using chakra outside your body is even harder than reinforcing your body with it. Maybe someone with control like Tsunade would have a chance, or maybe if this were a technique, but it's not. It's not even something Fū is doing consciously, so of course he can't stop his chakra loss and neither can the seals on his hands, once the chakra is beyond his skin.

Shikako's flimsy shirt, provided by T&I, tears in the middle of Fū yanking her off the table, right when she's in midair and he's getting ready to shove her into the chair. Shikako's quick reflexes save her from braining herself on the table or the chair-back but the only way to save herself is to grab on to Fū's arm before she can drop.

Fū pushes her back into the chair so roughly that Shikako's sure she'll bruise from it, considering her lack of chakra reinforcement. The chair scrapes across the floor with an awful sound.

"Ugh," Shikako complains, nonverbally, wind knocked out of her a little. Her shirt is missing a chunk, no worse than a low-cut top.

She barely has time to prepare before Fū is running through handseals, his hands on her temples before the scrap of her shirt hits the floor.

Unlike Inoichi, Fū's chakra isn't even slightly familiar. Fū is a stranger, a blank-faced enemy, and is almost certainly doing this against Inoichi's wishes. His technique is a rough, unyielding net casting through her brain — a firmer and more aggressive search for information than Inoichi's delicate touch.

Memories work by association, one thing leading to another to another. This intrusion feels like Jashin's brutal squirming and thinking of what Fū's technique reminds her of makes her think of what saved her and the field of stars that's been on her mind, the tuneless song.

The memory unfolds like the inescapable maw of some terrible beast, mindless and full of teeth, and breaks Fū's technique like an eldritch kraken tearing through a fishing net.

The swell of it, washing over her, washing through her. Scraping her clean, trimming the unclean edges and replacing them like new. Like a wave breaking against your legs, like being grabbed by the riptide, subsumed by Gelel.

Every part of you set alight.

Every part of you a part of it until you're barely you at all.

This isn't even the full experience. The real thing would melt Fū's stiff wire mind into molten slag.

Fū stumbles back. Actually stumbles, like he's forgotten what his body is doing, and trips over his own feel. He goes down, clutching his head and twisting until he's on his knees bent over, elbows resting on the floor. Shikako has to wonder how much of that was pure, thoughtless reflex because Fū seems insensate.

"The sky," he says, voice choked and aimless. "The sky, the sky."

There's blood — dripping from his nose, hopefully, but she can't actually see his face, just the droplets of blood hitting the floor. It could be coming from his mouth or eyes. She doesn't know much about the backlash of Yamanaka jutsu except for what she saw happen to Ino when they fought Kidomaru, and this is... not like that situation. Or maybe Fū just doesn't know any of the mantras.

"What did you do?" Tsunade snaps. She'd been standing close at hand and now she steps forward and crouches to check Fū — clearly realizing at the last moment that she's unable to use chakra and going with a physical assessment, fingers searching for Fū's pulse, hands trying to guide him up off the floor so she can look at his face.

It doesn't work, though. Fū is unwilling to straighten and Tsunade is literally powerless to make him as long as the door is closed.

"Inoichi said it was dangerous," Shikako says. "What did you think would happen?" She swallows useless nausea over the thought of what this might mean for Yamanaka Fū. This isn't Shikako's fault; it's on Tsunade.

Tsunade doesn't reply, already moving for the door.

"The lights!" Fū cries. His entire body shudders.

The door swings open, chakra rushing in, reassuring and abrasive. This might actually be a half-decent time to escape if Shikako herself weren't still reeling from her third mental intrusion in as little as two days.

"Get him out of here," Tsunade snaps to someone outside, one of the ANBU-hidden chakra signatures that's been loitering in the hall.

The ninja who comes in is wearing a strange mask that only lets his mouth and chin show, and no real ANBU gear to speak of. The chakra-masking must be habitual, rather than a part of his duties like it is for ANBU. It's hard to tell his age, but Shikako thinks he's younger than Fū. He kneels next to Fū and drags him upright.

Fū's nose _and_ eyes are bleeding.

"Torune, Torune," Fū whispers hurriedly. "Don't listen to the sound of the stars grinding together."

Torune's mouth is a grim, flat line as he leads Fū out of the room, mostly carrying him because Fū stumbles and lists like he's not sure where exactly his body and the floor connect.

Tsunade leaves after them without saying anything else to Shikako, and medical chakra is spilling from Tsunade's hands before the door even closes.

Shikako looks down at the blood. She curls forward, rests her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands and lets her hair fall in a loose curtain around her. She hadn't wanted to hurt him. She hadn't _meant_ to hurt him, hadn't even realized she _could_ , really. Not with that memory. If she'd been reaching for something to stop him in his tracks, she'd have reached for memory of the Kyūbi attack, memory of falling into the black, memory of Jashin looking at her, through her, and being unable to not look back.

Gelel's field of stars had worn away into something vast but ultimately comforting, the view from inside a god that's saved Shikako _twice_ now. She hadn't thought about how it would seem to other people. How incomprehensible it might be if you didn't first meet it with one foot in the grave.

It's probably not much more than half an hour later when the door opens again.

Sai.

She looks up at him.

"I did not think to bring tissues," Sai says, which is how Shikako realizes that she's crying.

Embarrassing. Awful. Shikako scrubs her face with her hands and is both immensely grateful that no one had shown up in the observation room since Tsunade had left and mortified that Sai came in and found her like this.

"It's fine," she tells Sai.

It isn't convincing, but Sai is a good friend who doesn't contradict her.

"I brought you a hair tie," Sai says, holding up said elastic. It's red. Kunoichi-grade. "I used to..." Sai falters, shifting awkwardly. "I could braid it for you."

Shikako blinks. Having her hair braided by someone else... by this version of Sai... maybe it should put her hackles up. This Sai is technically a stranger. But instead she nods, and Sai approaches.

He combs her hair out with his fingers. Shikako wonders if she got all the blood out, although if she didn't Sai doesn't seem to mind. His fingers move in a steady, practiced rhythm to plait her hair and then ties the end off. Despite crying only minutes beforehand, Shikako finally feels put together. Like a ninja.

"Thank you," Shikako says when Sai steps away. Now would be the time to make her move, probably, to turn on Sai. There's no one watching. She just has to get past Sai, and he'll probably hesitate to hurt her. Would Shadow Possession work to make Sai open the door? Will the seals whip the chakra from her shadow state away too fast for that?

She'll have to risk it. She can't be here when Tsunade comes back a fourth time.

"Also," Sai says. "The hair tie was only a pretense. I've come help you exfiltrate the village, as remaining in custody is not safe."


	4. part 3

As always, Math, Pepper, SQ, and Teapot really helped me get this together. Special mention to Voldecourt for being a good sounding board. I tried to respond to all the reviews I got but I might have missed you, or not had anything to say. Anon reviewers who want their reviews answered should probably hit up the review box on AO3.

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 **the dark fire will not avail you ― part 3**

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"Well... I'm not going to turn you down. I definitely shouldn't be here when Tsunade comes back," Shikako says, standing up and stretching. "But should you really help me get all the way out of the village? I could get away on my own. Probably. You could say I overpowered you or whatever."

There's no one in the observation room, and the muted signatures of the people in the building around her are turning in their mysterious clockwise fashion without any more urgency than usual. She's pretty sure that Sai is here as part of the regular rounds walked around the building to check on various prisoners. If Sai doesn't raise the alarm, Shikako could likely exit the building easily; she's been tracing the path of people through the building and has a good idea of where she is and which way to the exit.

Granted, it might be a stretch to say she overpowered him physically — Sai is older, taller, more muscled, and has probably had better grappling instruction than her — but Shikako's got some tricks up her sleeve that would make it plausible.

Sai blinks at her. "I'm not concerned with how this will effect my status in the village."

She can't tell if he means that he won't be in trouble or that he doesn't care about the trouble he'll be in, but Shikako only shrugs in response. It's Sai's choice to make and Shikako doesn't want to look this gift horse in the mouth, especially when any delay might get them caught before they can even get started.

"It will be... hard to leave if you don't know the ANBU stealth techniques." The corners of his mouth are pulled down in what Shikako thinks is worry. "We might have to fight."

Shikako can hide her chakra signature well enough that non-sensory jōnin, at least, have a hard time finding it. And she'd managed to use Kakashi-sensei's escape, evasion, and stealth training to sneak up on those foreign ANBU on that mission with Kiba. But sneaking out of T&I and out of the village altogether... probably not. And Sai looks like he wants to fight his way out even less than her, probably because this is actually _his_ village.

"If you think you can sneak out alone, I have a technique that should work," Shikako says. No one will know about shadow state here; it's doubtful that Sai's version of Shikako got any training in Nara techniques at all.

A little tension leaves Sai's shoulders, and he moves towards the door with her at his heels without further discussion. She kind of expected him to have questions about the technique but... apparently not. That's a lot of trust. Maybe his version of her had usually called the shots and often not explained things before trying them? Because Shikako thinks that that sounds like something she'd do, even shoulder-deep in ROOT and sinking.

Sai reaches out a hand to open the door. Standing this close and able to focus on just the door handle, Shikako can feel that it holds the barest sliver of his ink-brush water-nature chakra. A spark of chakra fires, the seal tests Sai, and the door handle turns. Chakra floods into the room, into Shikako's throat and lungs, but she suppresses the need to cough. Coughing is not stealthy.

Outside the room there's a short dead-end hallway that looks like all of the other T&I hallways Shikako has ever been in. This one has four doors, including the one she and Sai have just exited through. They're spaced far apart to allow for observation rooms and sound proofing and seal work and whatever other things had gone into the construction of T&I.

Right outside the door there's a skinny table with Sai's sword and kunai pouches on it. He affixes them all where they belong quickly and then looks to her. Shikako is barefoot, wearing thin clothing provided by T&I including her still-ripped shirt. She considers getting out her spare shoes and jacket, at least, but there probably isn't time and she doesn't intend to actually walk any farther to get out of here now that all the chakra has rushed back into her grasp.

"You should be able to just walk out," Shikako says. "Maybe try to avoid any Nara you see?"

Sai nods. Still no questions. Well, okay. Maybe she's made it sound like a clan secret which... it probably would be, if anyone but her could do it.

Shikako pulls out the chakra that she's been storing in the Gelel stone and melts into a thick pool of shadow. She doesn't exactly have eyes to see with, but she can still perceive Sai's surprise, the curious tilt to his head as he looks at her.

"I can still feel your chakra," he observes. Hearing is just as weird as sight in shadow state, but it works.

Shikako pulls her chakra in as tight as she can, as tight as she would after a nightmare about the Kyūbi. Shoves it down and down, past where the seals in the interrogation room had put it.

Sai nods, then seems unsure if she could have seen that and says, "Good."

Shikako slips forward silently into Sai's shadow, hiding there as best she can, matching the natural shape of his shadow and not seeking to control or freeze his movements.

He stays still for a moment... and then he turns towards the open end of the hallway. His pace is steady, unconcerned, perfectly casual.

There are several long stretches of hallway and a set of stairs that Sai hops up in one leap because ninja have just as little respect for flights of stairs as they do for things like front doors and foot paths. Then Sai has to cross a bullpen that's not unlike the one Shikako is used to from Cryptology.

"Hey, Hikaku, rounds go good?" asks one of the chūnin. Shikako doesn't recognize him, but he's practically lounging at his desk, a delicate mixture of balance and chakra keeping his tipped-back chair from toppling.

Sai stops to talk to him. Agonizing, but necessary. He says, "Yes, everything was normal. Everyone was where they were supposed to be."

"Cool, cool," says the chūnin.

He uses a chakra string to yank a clipboard into his hands and then a pen. He can't do both at once, it seems, but then Shikako has no place to talk, as her control of chakra strings is nearly as useless. The chūnin makes a couple marks on the clipboard and then hands both over to Sai, who signs his signature unbelievably quickly. Or, well, that's probably what he does; Shikako can't exactly tell from her angle on the floor.

Sai hands the clipboard back and says, "Thank you for your flexibility."

"No problem. You get anything new? Was she laying on the table again?"

"No. And no. I was building rapport. I think she will be more cooperative next time we speak."

The chūnin laughs. "Oh, sure, if Ibiki ever lets you interrogate anyone ever again."

"Even if he does, it's doubtful the Hokage is going to back down from her escalation," says someone else. "Not even with Yamanaka-sama so pissed at her."

There's a beat of uncomfortable silence, probably because having the head of the Yamanaka as mad as Inoichi must be about what happened to Fū — what Shikako unintentionally did to him — and at odds with the Hokage is... bad. Ibiki can't be too pleased, either, assuming this version of Ibiki has the same opinion of torture that Ibiki-taichō has.

"Whatever that girl did was fucked up, too bad we can't use the MRA or any of the other equipment," says the first chūnin, which is probably about as close as you can get to openly criticizing the Hokage, and then he calls out to someone in the back of the room: "Hey Santa, that cousin of yours okay? They figure out if it was one of her seals or whatever?"

In the back of the room, a Yamanaka who must be 'Santa' looks up from his paperwork. He has the same sharp, spun chakra that Ino and Inoichi and Fū have, his yet another variation on the same theme.

"We're not sure that it was a technique at all," Santa says. "There should be an announcement later this shift about it, once the elders are finished with their preliminary investigation, but we'll probably be barred from even using Holding-Door Mind Transmission on her."

"Shit, really?" says the talkative chūnin.

Another adds, "There's practically no risk with that jutsu, though. Aoba's used it on like. Everything that even seems like it might have a brain."

Sai starts moving again as the whole room starts reacting to this new gossip.

"That explains a lot about Aoba," says one of the special jōnin.

Sai crosses the bullpen quickly and exits a door that probably constitutes a drop in security level; sound from the bullpen shuts off suddenly. It's a conversation that Shikako is desperately, disgustingly glad to leave behind. She's not ready for that.

Three steps away from the door, it opens again. "Hikaku!" the woman stepping out calls.

Sai turns. He tenses, and so does Shikako, ready to back him up, ready to stretch out, connect to this woman's shadow, and freeze her.

"Sorry, I know you're trying to go home," she says. "The Jōnin Commander wants to see you before you leave the tower. I was supposed to tell you when you came in but..." She shrugs, and there's a faintly embarrassed air to her. In the bathroom or distracted by an attractive coworker, probably, when Sai came in.

"I'll go," Sai says. He can hardly _refuse_ after all.

The woman seems relieved. Sai... Sai does _not_ seem relieved, but starts off in the other direction, towards the stairs up to Nara Shikaku's office.

The office is the same as Shikako expected. The same as her father's office, and this man is essentially her father. He feels just the same, and looks the same as well, desk covered in neat stacks of paperwork and several nondescript scrolls. Out the window, Shikako can see the sun low in the sky but not yet setting. She'd lost all sense of time while in the interrogation room. Sai's shadow stretches out the door and into the hall and Shikako spreads with it, watches the hall as well as the office. People walk by, but none of them are Nara and Shikako is careful not to grab at them, careful to keep her chakra tight and hidden.

"Hikaku," Shikaku says in greeting, from a file cabinet at the side of the room. He closes it, the drawer rolling smoothly and shutting without a sound but with a flash of chakra from security seals. Shikako's not sure she'd have noticed that before being locked in a chakra-dry room for several days.

"Ogawa-san said you wanted to see me," Sai says.

"Yes. The Godaime wants you kept away from T&I," Shikaku says.

He turns from the file cabinet.

"A milk run to one of the outlying Nara farms seemed better than actually having you barred from the department," Shikaku says.

He starts across the room — headed for his desk, for one of the scrolls there.

"I hope you don't mind a little busy-work," Shikaku says.

He's backlit by the sun coming through the windows, his shadow long enough to span the office and even crawl up the wall a little.

"I don't mind," Sai says.

Shikaku's shadow brushes over the lower half of Sai's body, his shadow and Sai's overlapping. Shikaku... freezes. Just a little. A pause in his step and a more careful look at Sai.

Shikako can feel the rasp of his shadow over Sai's. There's no jutsu there, no conscious use of chakra for Shikaku, but Shikako knows that she's observed, nevertheless, because no matter how well she masks her chakra, Shikaku's shadow has basically touched it directly. His shadow feels just like her father's, and she struggles not to reach back, to tangle comfortably with that warm night sky.

He's not her father and he's just made Sai. They might need to fight — a fight Shikako's not sure they can win. Nara Shikaku is a dangerous opponent and he'll have back up here very, very quickly.

But Shikaku just picks up his pace, finishes crossing the room, and unrolls one of the scrolls. He speaks hurriedly now when he says, "You're later getting here than I thought you'd be, so you won't have time to go home to get anything or find a partner, but I hear you're always well-supplied."

Sai pauses, a noticeable pause, but seems to realize that Shikaku expects him to respond and offers, "Regulation in ROOT was to always have two weeks of rations on you at all times and be ready for deployment at any time. I am mission-ready."

"Good," Shikaku says. He finishes whatever he was writing with a signature, then rolls the scroll up and tosses it to Sai. "Here's your mission scroll. It has directions to the Nara farm from Kinchaku-gai. I've added a note authorizing your immediate departure from the village without waiting for the paperwork to clear because these notes need to get to that farm as soon as possible."

Shikaku throws a second, smaller scroll at Sai, which Sai also catches. Shikako knows that Shikaku knows she's here, knows that he must have guessed before Sai even made his way to T&I that he'd be breaking her out, and she's surprised that his plan seemed to be to give Sai an excuse to leave the village. Maybe it's just giving him rope to hang himself with, but if so why speed up Sai's ability to exit the village after noticing something amiss with Sai's shadow? No — Nara Shikaku is letting this happen. Supporting it. Not just helping Tsunade get Sai away from T&I, but helping Shikako get away from Tsunade.

Shikako's dad is the best in every universe.

"I apologize if my delay has caused you any trouble," Sai says, tucking the scroll he's to deliver into a secure pocket.

"You're not late yet, but you'd better get going," Shikaku says. "Straight to the gates and on to Kinchaku-gai."

"Yes, Shikaku-sama," Sai says. He's too good of a ninja for his pulse to race, and all the tension has left him, but Sai still clearly feels the same urgency Shikako does — he exits Shikaku's office and moves directly for the window at the end of the hall. He has to slide it open, because it's not usually used for coming in and out, but then he's flinging himself at the ground, his shadow sliding quicking down the side of the tower and then over the ground.

It's a strange feeling, really, because with Sai mid-air so dramatically Shikako has a good chance to feel not just the 2D visible shadow but the whole 3D shaft of blocked light that links Sai's body to Sai's shadow. It feels like being stretched to fill the space, but there's no strain to it — a shadow is the absence of a thing, so Shikako expands to fill the space.

Sai lands. Shikako is compressed. Another chakra enhanced leap brings Sai to the nearest rooftop and then he's bounding towards the village gates.

Halfway there someone Shikako doesn't see must flag Sai down because Sai angles his next jump to return to street level. Shikako is ready to scream in frustration and _then_ she realizes that the chakra signature they're headed towards is Sasuke. It's not exact, it's a little wrong, different enough that Shikako would peg the signature as either an infiltrator or a sign of the cursed seal being up to something if she were back home, but she guesses 'Sasuke' and then she sees that it _is_ Sasuke.

So maybe he's closer to the version she knows back home than Ibiki was to Ibiki-taichō, at least. And not _wrong_ like Tsunade.

"Hikaku," Sasuke says. "You're in a hurry. Towards the gates."

"Yes, I have a mission," Sai says. "I must go."

Sasuke frowns. His that-doesn't-sound-right frown. "You're on your in-village rotation. And you don't have a mission pack with you. Or teammates."

"It... is a very urgent mission," Sai offers. "And a favor. For the Jōnin Commander. It is important to build a rapport with my superiors."

Sasuke's frown deepens.

"You can read my mission scroll," Sai says, and hands that over. Sai hasn't even read it yet. "Quickly. I must leave immediately or my delivery will be late."

Sasuke unrolls the mission scroll and reads it. Not just a _normal_ reading, but like a lawyer checking for dastardly loopholes. He even flicks his Sharingan on and studies the note at the bottom.

"Well, I've been wanting to leave the village and stretch my legs," Sasuke says. He flips the tight-rolled mission scroll back at Sai.

Sai snatches it out of the air. "I do not require a partner."

"Mission scroll says you should have one if you can find one. You found me."

"I cannot delay for you to get your mission pack," Sai tries.

"Who _needs_ a mission pack to go to Kinchaku-gai?" Sasuke waves a hand like he's sweeping away Sai's concerns. "Anyway, you've got enough rations for a small army, right?"

"I have two weeks' worth of rations," Sai corrects.

"Well if it takes us more than a week to get to Kinchaku-gai and back, we probably don't deserve to return to the village." Sasuke's tone is dry, joking. He has no idea that Sai probably won't be _able_ to come back. He flips through hand seals to summon a small hawk, who he asks to tell his mother that he's going on an overnight mission 'with Hikaku' and he'll be back soon.

The hawk takes wing and then Sasuke looks expectantly at Sai. "Now I have to go unless you want me to have lied to my mom. And anyway, if it's that important you probably shouldn't keep standing here arguing with me about it, right?"

"..Right," Sai says reluctantly.

They both take off towards the gates

At the gates, it's Idate, again, and another chūnin Shikako doesn't know by name. Idate raises his eyes at the mission scroll and its urgently scrawled note signed by the Jōnin Commander.

"You always have the most interesting missions," he complains, handing the scroll back — which Sai only now takes the time to read — and noting down Sai and Sasuke's check-out time. "What the hell are you delivering that requires _two jōnin_?"

Sasuke shrugs.

Sai finishes reading the mission scroll and says, "We are leaving now."

Sasuke sends him a look — a look that says _you're being weirder than usual and it's bad_ — and then shrugs at Idate again, this time a little more apologetically. "Good luck!" Idate calls after them as they spring away south towards Kinchaku-gai.

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When the sun has gone down, Sai finally comes to a stop — there are no more Hashirama trees with broad branches to stop on, so he makes do with a clearing. Shikako supposes that they're going to deal with Sasuke now. It's just as well, because staying in Sai's shadow has gotten harder and harder and eventually she'll fall out. Not ideal.

The clearing has the added benefit of bright moonlight, but Shikako's not sure that Sai actually considered that.

"Are we making camp?" Sasuke asks.

The furrow of his brow should be hard to see in the dark of the night, but it's not. Shadow state senses are weird.

"...No," Sai says. "I wanted space in case we have to fight."

Sasuke tenses. Not the tenseness of someone expecting possible betrayal, but someone readying to enter into combat with his teammate at his side. "Where?" he asks, eyes flicking on, already scanning the forest around them."

Sai doesn't sigh or anything but he sounds tired when he says, "Sasuke, you shouldn't have come on this mission with me."

"That's exactly the kind of thing you'd say about a mission where you really need me," Sasuke shoots back immediately, but panic had very definitely flashed across his face. "And I'm not going to fight you. What's going on?"

Someone else would evade the truth, would use euphemisms or beat around the bush... would probably lie, and then take Sasuke by surprise to get him out of the way. But Sai... blunt, straightforward Sai... he says: "You interrupted me while I was committing treason and invited yourself along."

There is a long beat of silence.

"Okay," Sasuke says, slowly, taking in Sai's tense form and clearly going back over everything that's happened since he'd seen Sai leaping across the roofs on Tea Street. "Okay, _still_ not fighting you."

"You know I would win," Sai points out.

Sasuke... _rolls his eyes._ "Yeah, but also I don't want to. How treasonous is this treason we're talking about? Because assassinating your commanding officer, a respected village elder, in broad daylight was definitely technically treason but Tsunade just promoted you for that, so..."

"Tsunade-sama will not be pleased," Sai says. And then, looking down, he says, "You should come out now, Shikako."

So Shikako does, although she's not sure it's the best choice. It's a relief to pour out of Sai's shadow and into physical form again, her bare feet pressing into the scruffy long grass of the clearing. She _should_ have paused to put her extra set of shoes on in T&I.

She gets her regular hearing back just in time to hear Sasuke ask — demand — " _Nara_ Shikako?" and wonder if she really heard his voice crack a little.

"Yes," Sai says, confusion tinting his voice. Shikako relates; she didn't think this universe's Sasuke would have ever given Nara Shikako a passing thought.

Shikako looks up at Sasuke and discovers that spending so much time staying still and pressed down and incorporeal has a negative effect on her reflexes when Sasuke darts forward and drags her into a hug. Sai doesn't twitch to stop it or tense in warning, so he recognizes that it's not an attack, but Shikako is caught by surprise, practically yanked off her feet.

"' _Kako_ ," Sasuke says. And he sounds... younger. He sounds younger the way Shikako knows she and Ino and Sakura sound when they slip into childhood patterns.

His chakra is so nice. Not perfect, but familiar. She can't let herself relax into it because she'll lose all momentum to keep moving and this is far from a safe place to stop.

Sasuke pulls back, looks at her, his Sharingan flickering on to look her over. Then he looks at Sai. "Hikaku, this is your best treason yet."

Sai sounds _so_ pleased, if surprised, when he agrees.

"But," Sasuke adds, looking between them, " _why_ was it treason? Leaving the village without permission is just... bending the rules, as long as you come back. And where have you _been?_ And why is your shirt ripped, who did that to you?" The last two are directed at Shikako.

"Ah... this is awkward," Shikako says.

She means the explanation she's going to have to give, but Sasuke clearly takes it to mean the way he's clinging to her and he lets go abruptly. Which. Well. Probably good.

Shikako glances at Sai for help.

"Shikako had a sealing accident," Sai says, helpfully.

Sasuke looks. Uncertain. About that explanation. Or maybe about her. He says, "With... explosive tags?"

Of course, the only Nara Shikako that this Sasuke might have known would have been in the beginning stages of figuring out how to modify explosive tags. Which had involved a lot of practical tests which, when written down, became science. A perfectly respectable, hobby for a young Nara, if louder than was typical.

"A little more complicated than that," Shikako says. "I'm from... a version of Konoha where things are different."

"'Different' how?"

This had been so hard to explain to Ibiki, and they really don't have the time. And Shikako really doesn't want to go over it all again.

She reaches into her hammerspace and drags out two things in quick succession. First, shoes, which she lets drop to the ground. Sai and Sasuke both start at their sudden appearance. Second, a small cardboard box, still in her hammerspace from her move.

"This explains why you didn't have any supplies on your person when you were arrested," Sai observes, looking down at the shoes.

Shikako digs around in the box and ignores Sasuke's incredulous, " _Arrested?_ "

"Here," Shikako says, handing over a picture of the team from before Naruto had left on his training trip, all of them sitting on the veranda, Dad and Shika out of focus at the shogi board in the foreground.

She knows Sasuke will give it back. She knows before she hands it over, but she knows much more certainly afterwards, when he holds it like a priceless document.

"This never happened," Sasuke says, but she sees him looking at it with his Sharingan for a split second. "That's not me."

"It happened to me," Shikako says, quiet. "I was trying to... get away from something, but I escaped a little too far. I'm not... the Shikako you knew."

Sasuke has a moment to look at her, stricken, grappling with how quickly everything he thought he'd gained in the last few minutes has been stripped away.

Then Sai adds, "The Shikako you knew died fighting Danzō with me." He's giving one of his unfortunately misplaced expressions, the smile that means he's emotional but trying to be helpful.

Sasuke's eyes snap to Sai.

"What?" Sasuke croaks. "Your partner?"

"She taught me about teamwork." Sai pauses, and adds, "I didn't know that she was Shikako. I... would have said something. If she'd told me."

"We'll probably have to talk to the Nara about moving her to..." Sasuke trails off, glancing at Shikako. He holds the picture out so she can take it back. "Um. Nevermind. If Hikaku's helping you, I'm helping you. What are we doing?"

Yeah, Shikako doesn't want to hear any more details about where her remains ended up, even though it's kind of fascinating that the Uchiha apparently ended up in charge of them. Did police duties involve seeing to the interment — or cremation — of people with no one else to do it? Or... had Sai seen to it, and managed to get her buried on Uchiha clan grounds as well?

Shikako swallows. And puts the picture and the box away so she can put her shoes on. "Uh, escaping. Somehow. We should go to Kinchaku-gai and then to the Nara farm like Da — like Shikaku wanted."

"He knew you were in my shadow."

"He could feel me. If he'd wanted us stopped, we wouldn't have gotten out of his office, much less the village." Shikako stands and flexes her toes in her new shoes, never before worn. At least she _had_ an extra pair. She learned that lesson from Land of Birds. "Family, clan, and allies first. Then the village. Even if he doesn't believe I'm Shikako... you have to be a Nara to do anything with your shadow but kill yourself."

"Yeah, we all get that talk," Sasuke agrees. "No copying Nara jutsu."

Sai makes a sound like he disagrees, but other than both of them sending him an uncertain look they don't react. Now isn't the time for that. Shikako will ask later.

"It might be that this is a cover for you, in which case it's important to complete it," Shikako says thoughtfully. "Or we'll get more help there. Either way, we should keep well-ahead of possible pursuit." Knowing her father there are probably at least three to five reasons they should go to the Nara farm outside Kinchaku-gai but Shikako is too tired and knows too little about this version of Konoha to even want to begin to guess more than that..

"Well, no one can fault us for trying to do our mission as assigned," Sasuke says. "It _was_ marked urgent. And if they catch up with us again... you can just hide."

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The mission scroll has instructions about how to get to the Nara farm from Kinchaku-gai, but miles before they get to the town Shikako directs them west, off their straight shot to the town.

"Deer trail," she explains to Sai and Sasuke, gesturing below them at the thin path worn through the understory. She's never been to this farm before, but she knows its general location from maps in her father's office (why wouldn't it be the same in this univese?) and any Nara worth their salt can spot and follow a deer trail. Although, Shikako has _possibly_ cheated in regards to the deer trail; she's been tracking the movement of animals along it for awhile, the pin-prick energy, the same as she'd felt when she was in the chakra-dry room.

She's kind of beginning to suspect that it's not chakra that she's sensing, but now isn't the time to dig in to that.

The farm is a half-dozen buildings, five of them crowded in the middle of fields that Shikako knows have been in use for ten generations, the rotation of their crops carefully monitored. It's a Nara farm, but there will be out-village Yamanaka and Akimichi here, and the occasional local hired hand. In fact there's a likely chance of civilians from Kinchaku-gai and farther afield hanging around — not just seasonal workers but also delivery persons, merchants, and anyone attempting to marry into the out-village portion of the clan — so it's important that Shikako not be seen.

Of course, it's a _Nara farm_ , and the proof of that is in the sixth building, a barn, hanging just barely onto the edge of the cleared property. They keep deer here. They've kept deer here two generations longer than they've grown anything here. The deer path leads nearly straight to the barn.

It's simple for them to slip into the barn; its door sits wide open. Despite the predawn hour there's a man there, and he looks up when they enter, eyes sharp. He's got the black velvet chakra that all Nara share, and looks maybe ten or twenty years older than Shikaku. He's wiry, muscles only where he needs them, and he sets aside the medicine he's measuring when he notices them.

Shikako does not miss that the light in the room are set lowdown and to the back, making the barn very defensible. She wonders if Sai and Sasuke catch that, if they even expect this man to know the basics of the Nara jutsu.

The Uchiha don't have any outlying properties or businesses, sofar as she knows, except maybe Sora-ku, if that counts.

"You're an odd group," says the man. "Am I moving up in the world, getting three couriers?"

"We wanted to go for a light run," Sasuke says, even though all three of them have clearly run flat-out nearly through the night.

"Hm," says the man, amused. It's subdued, but anyone would be at this hour.

Sai already has the second scroll out, the one he's supposed to be delivering. He says, "We're looking for Nara Tōshōdai."

"You found him!" Tōshōdai holds his hand out. "Shikaku-kun must have something important to say to send you all out here with an order I don't need for another week at least."

Shikako stifles a giggle — or tries. She's tired, and the man is so clearly a Nara. It's hard to be professional in a Nara deer barn.

Tōshōdai looks up at her, grinning. "Never heard him called that, huh? I was raised in-village and I still remember him as a little squirt. I won't tell him you laughed if you don't tell him I'm calling him that in front of his very important out-clan jōnin."

"Deal," Shikako says. For the first time since she and Aoba got to Hot Springs she feels like her shoulders can come down from around her ears, metaphorically speaking. Guiltily, she finds herself wishing that Tōshōdai had been around in her childhood. The man might not even exist where Shikako is from.

"Ha! My small, secret reign of terror continues unobstructed," Tōshōdai cackles. "Alright, hand it over."

Sai hands over the slim scroll and Tōshōdai has to hold it up so that it will catch the light behind him and he can read it. He studies it for a long time and then holds it out for Sai to take back.

Tōshōdai says, "Well, it's unconventional, I'll give him that. My orders are to give you and your friend—" Here he gestures at Shikako. "—anything you need and let you read the rest."

Sai takes the scroll back and opens it to read it.

"Oh, and I'm not supposed to ask your name," Tōshōdai says, eyeing Shikako. "Which is suspicious. But apparently you're clan, and that's good enough for me."

"That's me, 'suspicious but good enough,'" Shikako says, and feels a little triumphant at the amused sound Sasuke makes.

Tōshōdai laughs too. What a cheerful person. Naruto would like him.

"I am now on an Intel mission," Sai says. He glances up from the paper, at Shikako. "To get what I can out of you about the... information you promised Tsunade." He looks at Sasuke next. "It doesn't say anything about you."

"Does it say I'm not on the mission?" Sasuke asks. "Does it say it's a solo assignment?"

Sai says no to both questions.

"Then I'm on this mission, too," Sasuke says with a nod. "Who's going to stop me? No one." He pauses. "I guess I _might_ have lied to my mom after all, though."

"Ah... I'm sure she'll understand?" Shikako offers, although she has no basis whatsoever for believing this of Uchiha Mikoto, having never met any version of her. Still, she must understand the way missions sometimes just... _happen_ to you without asking for your permission first.

"She'll be worried," Sasuke mutters. Aw.

"Yes," Sai says. "Especially after the pursuit squad fails to find us. It would be a mistake for either of us to return without substantial information." He glances at Shikako.

"Sure I'll cough it up," she says agreeably. "It'll take a while, though. There's a lot of it."

"Hiding first, then," suggests Tōshōdai. "We have a place for that."

Of course they do, Shikako thinks with some bemusement. Nara are nearly always prepared.

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* * *

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Yamanaka Santa is a canon character. Ogawa-san just got a common Japanese surname slapped on her but I think Shikako was wrong and she actually fell asleep at her desk waiting for Sai; she should go home and rest! Nara Tōshōdai was made up for this verse but is def Takatori's dad.


	5. part 4

Thanks per usual to everyone who helped, especially the Shisui Agenda! Some more specific thanks at the end to avoid spoilers from the chapter.

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Tōshōdai shows them a cleverly hidden trapdoor that leads down into a tunnel and then has to get back to his morning duties outside with the deer and wait for the likely pursuit squad. Shikako has a quick idea about that, too — she turns to Sasuke and asks, "You know shadow clone, right?"

Sasuke scoffs. "Naruto is my teammate. How could I avoid knowing shadow clone?"

"It's possibly her version of Uzumaki Naruto doesn't use it," Sai suggests.

"How the hell would he have stayed alive long enough to become any good without being able to spam that jutsu?" Sasuke asks. "He must have it."

He and Sasuke both turn to look at her, Sasuke looking kind of upset at the idea of Naruto not having his signature jutsu., despite dismissing the idea.

"My version of Naruto does have it," Shikako says. "Do you know it, Sai?"

"No. I frequently make use of ink clones, however."

Shikako shakes her head. "I don't know who'll be on the pursuit team, but I think shadow clones will be necessary to fool them."

Sai turns and looks at Sasuke, Sharingan activated. Sasuke flips through the seals for a shadow clone, and soon there are two Sasukes. Sai copies his action.

"Great. Now the two clones go continue on like this is a normal mission while we hide."

"Tōshōdai will not know about the change in plans," one of the Sais points out.

"I'm sure he'll catch on quick, he's a Nara," Shikako says. "Oh — give the clones the mission scroll. It's not like we need it anymore."

Clone Sasuke and Clone Sai go to catch up with Tōshōdai and express a great desire to stay for breakfast before heading back to Konoha with the shipment Shikaku had said was so very urgent. Shikako, Sasuke, and Sai drop into the tunnel and pull the trap door closed behind them.

Sai brings chakra light to his hand the way Shikako had taught herself to do as a child to see things in the dark. Shikako finds herself almost certain that Sai learned it from this universe's Shikako and swallows hard to clear the lump in her throat before she says, "Here, put chakra into this," and hands over an LED seal to him and Sasuke. They hold theirs in their hands, but Shikako sticks hers to her forehead out of habit, even though she doubts she'll need her hands free to fight down here.

The tunnel reminds Shikako of the one in Land of Birds that Toki had used to conceal her coming and going from the palace. The tunnel terminates in a windowless basement room build of local field stone with neat pointing, and above them there are a half-dozen people, some of them sleeping. In one corner of the room there's a ladder, which must lead up to some kind of trap door.

It looks like it would be hard to open from the ladder,but the passageway is probably for evacuation in the event that the farm is attacked, so they wouldn't have planned for people coming up the tunnel to the house.

Shikako can sense the clones milling around above, making conversation with whoever it is that's in the kitchen making breakfast. Now that she has a minute to focus on them... the clones both lack that field-of-stars spark that Shikako has come to expect to sense from everyone, so... maybe that answers the question of what it is for sure now, although Shikako's mind skitters away from the obvious conclusion.

She has enough problems for now; her new sensing ability isn't impeding her so she can just... ignore it for now.

After a moment of looking dully at the empty basement, Shikako sighs and sits with her back against the cold stone wall and asks Sasuke about the Academy. "I wasn't really expecting you to even know who I was, let alone be happy to see me."

Sasuke is sitting immediately to her left, had settled in to sit at her side immediately like he couldn't bear the thought of even just sitting on the other side of the room. Not that Shikako minds. It's nice to have him and his familiar chakra so close. Sai sits in front of them, which his back to the rest of the room, including the trap door and the tunnel they'd entered from.

This is, Shikako is sure, Sai's own form of showing intimacy — trusting them to watch his back.

"You — she — started inviting me to things, and I started accepting." Sasuke shrugs a shoulder. Clearly more of a story there. Probably something to do with Itachi, though, so Shikako won't ask. "She figured out how to blow things up when we were like seven, so... I spent a year hanging out with her and Shikamaru every day after the Academy let out. She even got herself excused from kunoichi classes so we'd have more time."

Shikako can imagine it. The desperation. Deciding to do something about the massacre and then scrambling to do anything because children have no agency and Shimura Danzō is dangerous and ubiquitous.

"And then..." Sasuke pauses. Not a dramatic pause, but instead the kind that requires a kind of shaky breath. The kind her Sasuke usually takes before mentioning his clan.

Nara Shikako was a seven year old little girl when she was last seen , Morino Ibiki had said, but Sasuke says they had played together for most of the year — Shikako knows the timeline, knows what Sasuke is going to say, and she's glad when he inches closer to her, so that their shoulders brush, although she doesn't think he did it for her comfort.

"In July, just before I turned eight, Itachi told me I had to come home straight after the Academy let out, because he had a surprise for me." Sasuke's voice is quiet; it would be almost inaudible in a bigger room.

Shikako holds still for fear that the sound of her clothed back brushing against the stonework behind her might drown him out and she'll have to ask him to repeat himself .

"We're pretty sure she thought it was for my birthday, even though it was a week or two early, so she skipped class... and went to the compound... and you were there when Itachi started..."

Shikako nods so that Sasuke doesn't have to say it .

"You set off explosive tags that drew all kinds of attention. We thought — we thought you, she, died saving the clan. But I guess something worse happened to you instead."

For one wild minute, looking at Sasuke and his grief, this years-old pain, Shikako thinks maybe she should reassure him that that other Shikako, his real Shikako, had known exactly what she was walking in to. But that would mean explaining how they'd known about the massacre, it would mean explaining a lot of things, and... Shikako can't do that.

She reaches for Sasuke's hand instead. Slides her fingers between his.

"In my timeline... I didn't invite you to anything. I didn't interrupt the massacre. You were the last of your clan." Shikako squeezes Sasuke's hand as that information hits him like a punch to the gut. "It kinda sucks that this other me got caught up in it, but it definitely wasn't your fault and it could have been worse. I was so glad to hear your mom is alive, Sasuke — I've never met her."

Sasuke's eyes flicker red, looking down at their hands. At her lime-green nail polish and the scars from Kimimaro fucking her hand up.. Memorizing it.

"You were my best friend," Sasuke says. "You meant so much to me — and Itachi was so surprised when I told him it was you I was looking to avenge, not our father, when Hikaku and I went to kill him. Surprised I blamed him for your death... "

Well, Itachi's plan had been kind of terrible to begin with and Shikako can't imagine that its execution improved at all with the addition of a sudden interruption. But Itachi probably didn't even know that this universe's Shikako had been there and set off the explosions. Obviously Madara hadn't found native Shikako — because in that case native Shikako would have been genuinely dead — so she must have been snatched up by whatever ROOT agents were loitering around like vultures, waiting to start collecting bodies and looking to prevent interruptions.

"He probably didn't realize Danzō pinned my supposed death on him," Shikako says thoughtfully. "They couldn't have communicated much after Itachi left the village, and I doubt my death rated a bingo book mention."

Silence from Sasuke and Sai. Shikako looks between them

"What does Danzō have to do with Itachi?" Sai asks.

"Why would they have communicated at all, ever?" Sasuke asks.

"Uh, yikes," Shikako says. "Itachi was in ROOT? Or... I'm pretty sure he was? And... Danzō ordered the massacre, to get rid of the clan?"

This does not appear to ring any bells with them.

"We thought he just harvested the eyes he stole because the opportunity to do so arrose," Sasuke says numbly. "He planned it?"

"I mean, maybe that's only true where I'm from," Shikako tacks on. Maybe it's only true in a manga series from Before, really; technically Shikako still hasn't found any solid proof in her own world, although she doesn't doubt it at all.

"Itachi said that... he was lured into it by Uchiha Madara," Sasuke says slowly. "To test his power. To see if he was strong enough to join the Akatsuki."

"Madara was there," Shikako says carefully. "But... Danzō was putting pressure on Itachi and Shisui. He stole Shisui's eye for his Mangekyou power. Kotoamatsukami."

"We never found either of Shisui's eyes," Sasuke says dully.

"Itachi didn't have one in... in one of his crows, or anything?" Saying it makes it sound a little silly, because a human eye shouldn't fit in a crow's eye socket and also because 'in a crow's eye socket' isn't exactly the first place one thinks to store an eyeball. But it's what Shikako remembers.

Sai says, "Uzume-ba and I are the crow summoners."

"Given that Itachi was slowly going blind, we've been sure for years that Itachi destroyed them after his transplant attempts were unsuccessful. My father was distantly of the Kotoamatsukami lineage, but he was picked more for skill at police work than for blood ties." Sasuke looks at her, his eyes dark and lacking Sharingan again. They're sitting so close Shikako can feel Sasuke's breath stir the air in front of them. He asks, "You have a different theory?"

Shikako hadn't known that the Uchiha tracked Mangekyou power lineages. It makes sense of course that they would, if children can only inherit one, but it's still surprising to hear. She wants to know if Sasuke is Amaterasu lineage, then — but now really isn't the time to ask.

"Danzō took them. And then Shisui did genuinely kill himself — in front of Itachi." Shikako pauses. "And... before that, Danzō probably had at least one of Uchiha Kagami's eyes. I think. Maybe. They were teammates."

She can't actually remember if that's the case, and there probably won't ever be a way to confirm it unless Danzō outright admits it, which Shikako doesn't actually expect him to do. Also, he's dead here. But it's not unlikely , and the details don't matter very exactly in this case, since Danzō is already dead.

"He could have done... so much damage with Kotoamatsukami," Sasuke mutters.

Hesitantly, Shikako says, "I think he did. I think... even accounting for the different universe, Tsunade was... there was something not right about her in T&I. She was callous and a little... irrational." Shikako swallows. "She didn't even ask for my information on Akatsuki, really, she was going to have me tortured."

"Torture doesn't work," Sai says, with the sound of a phrase he's had repeated to him often. Probably by native Shikako. "Morino Ibiki doesn't use it."

Sai had probably been in T&I for awhile after killing Danzō in broad daylight.

"I don't think Tsunade was going to let that stop her. What if Danzō used Shisui's Kotoamatsukami on her?"

Sasuke's frown only deepens. "Then we're fucked. She's Hokage and we need her. And the only thing that can undo a Mangekyou genjutsu of that power... is an equally strong Mangekyou. But Kagami only had the one descendant. The Kotoamatsukami lineage has otherwise faded, and even if the clan knew for sure who might activate it... the clan doesn't force people to gain their Mangekyou."

"Of course not," says Shikako.

"I could probably kill Tsunade," says Sai. "Though I would prefer not to."

"No one's killing Tsunade." Definitely not, no matter how compromised she might be. Although Shikako does appreciate Sai's willingness to come up with a plan and commit to it.

Sai gives her such a solemn nod in return that Shikako can't avoid the knowledge that he's taken her veto not as a rejection of a bad plan but as an order . That's a lot of pressure, and Shikako doesn't want to think about who she would have become in ROOT. What she would have done. What she did do, in this world. It's too heavy, it's not a weight that Shikako can carry if she wants to get home.

So it's time for a subject change. She starts, "About the Akatsuki—"and then tells them everything she knows for sure from her timeline and some things she's found no concrete proof of. She especially tells them about Hidan. It's a struggle to get the words out, but they need to know about Jashinists.

Sai also briefly, unemotionally summarizes the mission where he and Sasuke killed Itachi together for her. Sasuke's only comment about it is that Sai's Mangekyou had been invaluable.

She looks Sai over. "What does your Mangekyou actually do, anyway? If you don't mind me asking."

"I have the Yatagarasu." The three-legged crow. "It's a guide. It shows me where to strike. Where things are weak."

"It can break a wall, a formation, or a person," Sasuke adds.

That sounds useful as hell. And specifically, Shikako wonders — "Could it break a genjutsu? Could it break the Kotoamatsukami?"

Sasuke and Sai look at her, and then at each other, and then they shrug.

"Maybe?" Sasuke says.

"I would need someone to test it on," Sai says.

It's better than nothing. "You should update your clones," Shikako says. "While you have the chance."

She's not actually sure that Sai knows you can give your shadow clones new information by creating a new clone and dismissing it, but whether or not he knows why, he follows Sasuke in creating and then immediately dispelling a new shadow clone. Up above them, Clone Sasuke and Clone Sai momentarily pause, one after the other, as they gain new information.

They talk a little more about the differences between their two worlds. Team 7's first C-rank had been to Wave, too, but Zabuza and Haku had died. Sakura is still Tsunade's apprentice. This universe has had no war with Cloud, just continued tensions with Sand.

"Really?" Shikako asks. "But... Gaara is Kazekage, isn't he?" Obviously there wouldn't be an alliance with Mist — the rebellion's coup might still be going, even, without Zabuza and Haku to help them — but the alliance with Sand should have happened as long as Naruto and Gaara had their fight during the Sand-Sound invasion.

"No? He's our age." Sasuke looks genuinely confused. "I don't think he or his siblings are very popular with Sand after fucking up the delivery of Sand's reparations. Their teacher, Baki, is Kazekage, but I think they only picked him because he's the best jōnin they've got. He's not really kage-level. Sand is on the decline."

Troubling. Shikako explains the progression of the renewed Konoha-Sand alliance — the fight with Gaara during the invasion, their involvement in the Sound 4 debacle, and the Grass chūnin exams, mostly.

Sasuke explains that after this universe's version of the Sound 4 thing, when the Sand nin had been resting up and waiting for Tsunade to finish her reply to the Sand council, Katō Shizune had been murdered and blame had fallen on Sand.

"They denied it," Sasuke says. "But the evidence was apparently overwhelming."

"Apparently?"

"It was a matter of village security, so ANBU handled the investigation, not the police." Sasuke shrugs. "So I haven't seen the results of the investigation for myself. Almost no one has. But Tsunade was convinced."

"ANBU Bear was in charge of the investigation," Sai offers. Then: "ANBU Bear was a high-ranking member of ROOT."

Sounds fishy to Shikako, too, but there's not much to talk about. Instead she asks about ROOT, and learns that it was discovered and disbanded when Danzō was killed.

"I'm not so sure about that," Shikako mutters. "Maybe they just got folded into ANBU? But Yamanaka Fū sure didn't seem like he'd gotten out."

And then, on the edge of Shikako's chakra sense, a familiar signature — Kakashi-sensei. Or, well, the Hatake Kakashi of this universe, feeling painfully familiar.

"Pursuit squad's here," Shikako says, and their conversation lapses as they wait, tuck their chakra in tight, and strain to listen to the conversation going on above.

"Kakashi-sensei?" Clone Sasuke says.

"Hello," Clone Sai says.

"How come my cute little genin are always getting in so much trouble?" Kakashi bemoans. "And it's you so frequently, Sasuke, giving your sensei heart attacks."

Shikako's heart tightens to hear it, that familiar tone. This Hatake Kakashi feels almost exactly like her Hatake Kakashi, and Shikako could really, really use a couple minutes with her sensei.

"What kind of trouble am I supposed to be in?" Clone Sasuke asks carefully. Shikako can imagine his expression, carefully blank and a little bored, either eyeing the non-Kakashi members of the pursuit squad like they're embarrassing themselves by turning up looking for him at all or ignoring them completely.

The pursuit squad who must be ANBU, because their chakra is packed tight, although since they've definitely appeared in the room along with Kakashi they're probably not officially on duty or anything. Shikako is fairly sure that ANBU don't do that.

Shikako only recognizes the chakra of one of them, besides Kakashi. Tenzō is part of the pursuit squad, and his chakra feels bad, wrong, and Shikako's not looking forward to finding out what that means for Tenzō's personality in this verse.

"You've been kidnapped, of course!" Kakashi says cheerfully.

"By who?"

"Uchiha Hikaku, obviously," Kakashi says.

There's an awkward pause

"Kakashi-sensei, we're just eating breakfast before we head back to Konoha." Clone Sasuke's tone is perfectly contemptuous. "Why would my own cousin kidnap me?"

"He's really only your fourth cousin once removed," Kakashi says. "You're practically strangers. And you caught him committing treason, so obviously he kidnapped you to keep you quiet."

Someone else in the room, one of the civilians, asks, "Treason?" and sounds appalled. Treason is, after all, about the worst crime a ninja can be accused of. Especially a ninja sitting in your kitchen talking to Hatake Kakashi.

Sasuke's clone asks, "Treason?" in a scalding tone usually reserved for Naruto's worst ideas.

"Sasuke merely intercepted me as I was leaving for an urgent but low-stakes mission," Clone Sai says. "He invited himself along because he didn't think I could get to Kinchaku-gai alone."

Clone Sasuke makes a disgruntled sound. " No," Clone Sasuke corrects. "I thought this mission was a cover for... some other really urgent mission, so urgent they'd just grabbed whoever happened to be at the Tower when it came in. I didn't think Shikaku was actually sending you on an urgent milk run."

In the basement, Sai and Shikako both eye Sasuke with surprise. He glares at them for looking so surprised, so Shikako supposes it's true. What Clone Sasuke actually probably means is that he assumed Sai was being sent on an ANBU mission alone — Sai and Sasuke both have the tattoo on their shoulder — but of course Sasuke can't just talk about ANBU in front of the out-village Nara hanging around the house.

"Do you have a mission scroll?" Kakashi asks. One of the clones must hand it over because then he says, "Well, that's definitely Nara Shikaku's handwriting and signature. Tenzō, didn't anyone ask the jōnin commander?"

"We also signed out at the gate," Clone Sai says helpfully.

"Uchiha Hikaku was the last to sign in to the prisoner's cell and the most likely suspect to aid in an escape," Tenzō says, with the tone of someone repeating a mission briefing verbatim. While Kakashi had sounded like his usual teasing self when addressing Tenzō, Tenzō sounds flat. Shikako's only met her own version of Tenzō once, but it makes the hair on her arms raise to hear him sound so empty.

"She's missing?" Clone Sai asks. "She seemed very determined to cooperate as soon as she could be sure she was delivering her intel to a trustworthy source." There's no real concern in his voice, but then... one wouldn't expect it. No, Clone Sai speaks with the same tone Sai always does, although Shikako can imagine him pulling his face into the very picture of concern, striking a strange contrast between expression and tone.

"I don't mean to interrupt," Tōshōdai breaks in, with a tone of voice that indicates he absolutely means to interrupt. "This is a working farm, not a debriefing room or what have you. Shikaku-sama's mission scroll seemed clear to me. If there's more gossip to impart, maybe you could do it elsewhere? We all have work to get to, and some of it requires the kitchen."

"Of course, Nara-san," Kakashi says. "We got a little carried away. If you two are done resting up, we'll head back to Konoha now."

His tone implies that this is less of a suggestion than it is an order. The two clones stand and thank Tōshōdai and the other civilians for their hospitality. Then the whole group leaves towards the village at high speeds.

After about five minutes, the trap door opens. Sai twists to look at it.

"C'mon up and have some real food before you go," Tōshōdai says. "And I got a change of clothes for you, mysterious kunoichi-san."

Shikako actually has several changes of clothing in hammerspace, because she doesn't believe in being unprepared, but it hadn't occurred to her to change out of the thin clothes T&I had provided. Now that it's been pointed out, Shikako is a little frustrated to realize she'd presented herself to Tōshōdai in a ripped shirt, although he clearly hadn't thought much of it.

Tōshōdai also tells someone out of sight that they've got three more people to feed. Shikako had been kind of planning to eat some combination of ration bars and powdered protein shake, but real food sounds great.

Sasuke says, "Nara-san, if you have work, we wouldn't want to impose," which is the kind of phrasing Shikako's dad had coached her and Shikamaru in during clan heir training. It's weird to hear it from Sasuke, though.

"Ah, ancient Akimichi saying," Shikako says. "Eating is the only work that matters."

Tōshōdai cackles with laughter, and so does the woman in charge of the cooking who had been serving the two clones.

Shikako climbs up the ladder first, followed by the boys, and is handed a small stack of dark, durable clothing, including a mesh shirt. The Nara standard, although when she goes to change she finds that the Nara mon is even printed onto the back of the jacket. Shikako's things are usually embroidered, not screen printed, but embroidery is more expensive and this farm wouldn't just have that sort of thing laying around, anyway.

It feels good to be marked as a Nara again

Breakfast is simple but perfect — rice, miso, fish, natto, and even farm-fresh eggs. Real food. It's being served when Shikako comes out of the room she'd used to change, and a woman serving it, who looks like she's probably an Akimichi, is asking, "Didn't I feed you two boys already this morning?"

"Ah, those were clones, ma'am, sorry," Sasuke explains, looking actually embarrassed. "You really don't have to—"

The woman continues serving him and Sai. "Hmph," she says. "Clever. You'll get to taste my food twice." Shikako sits down and gets served double what the boys were served, apparently because the Akimichi woman believes in the fair and equal distribution of food between teammates.

"You can get a message to Shikaku, right?" Sasuke asks Tōshōdai as they eat. They do have a fair bit of intel to pass on back to him and no guarantee that the clones will actually get to Konoha, let alone succeed in telling Shikaku anything. Shikako can think of a few things he should probably know that she hasn't gotten around to telling Sai and Sasuke yet, too.

Tōshōdai is sitting at the table with them, doing some kind of paperwork and sipping tea. He looks up. "Sure. I made sure to leave some stuff out of that shipment I made your clones, especially since they might not even make it all the way back to the village. Someone will have to come by again soon, and Shikaku will probably send a Nara."

"I'll write it," Shikako says. "I know all the clan codes."

Tōshōdai's eyebrows raise. "Well, alright," he says. "I'll go get you extra paper."

"I've got that too," Shikako says, and yanks a blank scroll out of hammerspace by reaching into thin air and pulling, just to watch Tōshōdai's eyebrows jump higher.

She eats with one hand and writes with the other, a hard-won skill, and is surprised to find she actually finishes everything that was served to her.

Sai is looking at her, frowning. "Did they feed you?" he asks her.

"Uh," Shikako says. "You brought me a ration bar and some water? Anyway, this is done." She hands it off to Tōshōdai, stands, and bows to him. "Thank you for your hospitality, jii-san."

"It was good to meet you," Tōshōdai says to all of them. To Sasuke and Sai he says, "Hope that whole treason thing clears up — seems like Shikaku thinks you're in the right of it, anyway." To Shikako, he says,"I hope you'll come back and visit some time, when you can introduce yourself."

"I don't think it's very likely," Shikako hedges. "But maybe next time you see Shikaku-sama he'll explain."

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* * *

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After breakfast they leave the Nara farm and stop to talk a few miles out because they hadn't wanted to actually discuss where they'd be headed next where others might overhear. Better for Tōshōdai to be able to say he genuinely has no idea, should someone ask.

"I should probably check the temple in Hot Springs," Shikako says, without any enthusiasm.

"That might be difficult, as a squad was dispensed to investigate where you came from and they're likely still in Hot Springs now," Sai says.

That could be a problem. Granted, Shikako's pretty sure that she could sneak around most squads who might be dispensed to poke around... but given that Tsunade had sent Kakashi and a squad of ANBU-trained ninja for the pursuit squad, she's not going to count on the investigation team just being a couple of chūnin or anything.

"We could just... hang out elsewhere until the investigation squad is done," Sasuke muses. "Although the longer Sai and I are out of the village in parts unknown the more likely it is that we'll be named missing-nin which... would be annoying."

Shikako's lips quirk, amused at the understatement. "Annoying?"

Sasuke huffs. "Imagine how Naruto would react," he says. "He's supposed to come back soon and I'm sure if he came back to hear that I'd defected he'd turn right back around to try and come find me."

"Well, I'd hate to subject you to that," Shikako says. Also, you know, Shikako really really doesn't want to go back to Hot Springs. She'd be happy to avoid Land of Hot Water for the rest of her life , and now she gropes for a good reason to go absolutely anywhere else. "Plus I don't really want to be on a never-ending camping trip. And I hate waiting. I think... I think if there had been anything obvious to be found in Hot Springs, I would have found it when I arrived."

"Did you look for a seal there before coming to Konoha?" Sai asks.

Mostly she'd passed out and thrown up. But — "I can sense seals," Shikako explains. "Active seals, anyway, anything with chakra. And I didn't sense anything that might be, uh, relevant to interdimensional travel." She hadn't exactly been looking for that sort of thing at the time, but it would probably be obvious. "But I did... hear something. Do you think we can go to Wind? How tense are things?"

"Nominally we're still allies, and Sand really doesn't want to start a war they can't win, so if we get there ahead of any message saying Sai and I are acting against Konoha, they can't really say no. Although... we'll probably get an escort from some grumpy Sand nin. What did you hear that makes you think Wind is the best place to look?"

"A... sound I recognized," Shikako says slowly. "From a mission that took me out to the Dead Wastes. There's some very, um, special seal work there. Or, there should be." Considering that this universe still exists and everyone isn't under the rule of the New Gelel Empire or anything, the invasion must have been thwarted and hopefully the temple is still there, and Gelel is still there, and... when Shikako gets there she'll have some kind of bright idea about how to use the man-made kami of the Dead Wastes to get home.

Sasuke nods, like she's told him everything he needs to know. "We can get you to the Dead Wastes," he says. "Hell, Sand will probably be happy to send us blundering around in there, just on the off chance we die."

It's weird to think of Sand as the enemy.

They head west towards Land of River. It's only about a day to the border. The trip to the Dead Wastes itself is a little complicated by the fact that it's in the north of Land of Wind, where the sand sea desert fades into dry canyons, but they'll have to stop at the River-Wind border stop, which is not to the north, to clear their trip through Wind. Annoying, but necessary.

After the trees become too small for tree jumping, they have to switch to running on the forest floor. Over a late lunch, Sai says, "My clone just popped."

Clone Sai, he explains, went back to Konoha with Clone Sasuke and the pursuit squad. Both clones were hustled into separate interrogation cells. Clone Sai sat through what was probably the most frustrating, boring interrogation Morino Ibiki has ever given until a Nara showed up with an irate note from Shikaku wondering where his urgent shipment of stuff from the Nara farm was.

"He wanted to meet on Nara grounds," Sai says thoughtfully. "And there was no one else in the house when my clone arrived. He even put up privacy seals so we could speak freely. It was very convenient."

"Oh no," Sasuke says "You didn't."

"I did," Sai says. "It was the best chance I was likely to get. And it worked. My clone was able to see and break the Kotoamatsukami genjutsu on him..." Sai blinks slowly. "Regrettably, Shikaku-sama did find my attack on the genjutsu to resemble an attack on his person, so although I did manage to break the genjutsu my clone was not able to observe any long- or short-term effects."

"Hikaku," Sasuke groans. "Shikaku was probably the only person standing between you and real trouble."

"I felt it was more important to free him of the genjutsu," Sai says. He glances at Shikako.

Shikako doesn't like thinking about her father — any version of her father — being under Danzō's influence. She likes even less that Sai's glance implies that he might have done it less out of loyalty to the village and its hierarchy and more out of loyalty to her. Shikako isn't even sticking around. He shouldn't really be loyal to her.

Shikako takes in a deep breath and then stands up. "Assuming he can tell he was under a genjutsu, he probably won't do anything about it until he has all the facts," Shikako says. "But we don't know if he was aware of the genjutsu. Maybe not, since he took Sai's clone breaking it to be an attack. We should keep moving in case the pursuit squad is sent after us or a hawk is sent to the border."

"My clone hasn't popped yet," Sasuke reports as they start moving west again. "Probably being yelled at by my mom. And Uzume-ba-san."

"Uzume-ba?" Shikako asks.

"She and Hikaku are both from the same lineage," Sasuke explains. "She named him after her grandfather, who was the last one to have the Yatagarasu."

"I had... a different name, before I became an Uchiha," Sai says. "The name you know. But I... didn't want to share it. So I accepted a new name."

"You were always an Uchiha," Sasuke corrects him.

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* * *

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Uchiha Uzume ("Uzume-ba") is Pepperdoken's OC. ANBU Bear is Shimura Chiyome, BoPeepWithNoSheep. Special thanks to Bo for murdering Shizune in cold blood! Anyone who wants more information on my intense Uchiha Mangekyou lineage (hashed out with much help from the agenda, of course) is welcome to ask for it. I have some diagrams.


	6. part 5

Thanks to the Agenda for their help making this chapter work and also for screenshots of the Gelel temple! I think we've only got a chapter to go before we're all done with Dark Fire. When I finish Dark Fire, I'm only going to put further installments up on AO3 because I hate uploading here _so much_. AO3 gave out a lot of invite codes over the holidays and the queue's usually only a couple days long anyway, so I'd suggest that anyone who wants to follow the series further sign up for AO3.

Also, if you stop by the bottom of the AO3 version of this chapter, there's a link to a dreamwidth discussion thread with anonymous commenting enabled.

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* * *

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Out of all of them, Sai has the most skill and practice at skipping over borders past patrols without being noticed. Sai ran ANBU-level missions early and often, ROOT ops where even stopping at the border post to pick up intel was forbidden because Danzō was circumventing the Hokage's authority and therefore the missions were truly done in complete secrecy, and it's not _pleasant_ to think about that...

...but it is _practical_ to take Sai's experience into consideration, and Sai doesn't flinch from discussing or utilizing his knowledge and skills. Sai is the one who suggests that they head directly north, to cross the border out of Fire closer to Rain than Konoha ninja usually prefer when going to Wind, and then head south-west to the usual River-Wind border crossing.

Kubisaki Pass cuts through the very north of Land of Rivers, practically tracing the backs of the mountains that make up the Rain-River border. So, Sai explains, much of the manpower in the area is spent tracking border crossings there and making sure that Fire's end of the pass is maintained to an acceptable degree. Ninja coming _in_ to Land of Fire are unlikely to get by the large outpost — used as a command center in the Second War — that's set further back from the border than the crossing-point outposts, but ninja leaving the country can easily blend in with other traffic.

It's kind of chilling to listen to Sai lay out the problems with their country's security, holes purposefully left open by Danzō that Tsunade evidently hasn't gotten around to fixing yet even though Sai says he's told her about them, but in this case it's also useful.

They hit the Fire-River border before nightfall and agree that Sai should be the one to call the shots as they cross the border. Shikako gets the impression that Sasuke has absolutely crossed _some_ borders secretly before, probably on ANBU missions, but he's apparently never done _this_ border crossing before.

Sai runs through the hand seals for a summoning immediately, and when the chakra mist clears he has a crow perched on his arm. A crow who looks very, very unhappy.

"Uzume said to tell you that you're an idiot and to come home," the crow says, shifting on Sai's arm like it's so annoyed it can't sit still.

His feathers, Shikako realizes, are _literally ruffled_. She tries to keep the humor off her face as Sai fends off the crow's displeasure and proceeds to introductions. The crow is named Kansoku — "observation" — which might be a title more than a name.

"I didn't realize you had summons," Shikako says.

Kansoku peers down his beak at her. "It's more like we have him."

Cute.

Sai explains what he needs from Kansoku and Kansoku grumbles but compiles, taking wing to find and observe the Konoha patrols in the area. Once he finds them, Sai uses a sight-sharing jutsu to track their location and reactions as they sneak around the patrol and slink across the border, Shikako taking point because she's most likely to be able to sense non-patrol ninja in their path and redirect them.

Before he had summons, Sai must have done this with his ink animals.

The crossing goes without a hitch, contrary to Shikako's usual missions, leaving her stomach tight with tension long past the reasonable threat of discovery. Once they've cleared the patrol zone on the River side of the border, they head mostly south, following rivers full of civilians herding rafts of fresh-cut logs downstream.

Early evening, Shikako starts to hear Gelel's sound, its indescribable music, the same deafening but silent tune that hums through the nature chakra in River, powerful reverberations carried through the water table and the bedrock. Shikako is surprised by how much better she can sense it now, although she's not sure if that's because she's so familiar with it or if it's because she's had sensor training now.

She finds she feels it especially strongly in her abdomen, where her Gelel stone is still embedded.

They're still in River when night falls. Sasuke and Sai seem certain that they'll need to announce themselves to the Sand nin patrolling the Wind border if they want to cross out of Rivier without incident. Sand is somewhat understandably on higher alert for border crossings from River than Konoha is for border crossings from the Kubisaki Pass.

"I've heard they have Gaara on the border somewhere, to make crossing unnoticed difficult," Sasuke mentions, and that pretty much cements that they'll need to forge an appropriate mission scroll.

"Okay," Shikako says. "So... we just need a reason for us to _really_ need to head to the Dead Wastes. Can Kansoku cross the border and wait there for us?"

"He'd find it boring," Sai says. "I don't have the necessary ninja wire to bribe him with."

Knowing that Kansoku is nearby, probably listening and watching, Shikako doesn't let her amusement show. She just says, "I have ninja wire. Have either of you ever written your own mission scrolls?"

No, it turns out, they have not.

"Then you two make dinner while I write a draft," Shikako says. There's no real reason to choke down nothing but water and ration bars when they've stopped to handle this anyway.

She finishes writing the mission draft before the rabbits Sasuke caught finish cooking. Sai reads it out loud while Sasuke uses his Sharingan memory to mimic the handwriting and format of the scroll Shikaku wrote for Sai the day before.

"You want to imply that someone actually managed to steal the Sword of the Thunder God? Managed to get at it in the first place, _and_ managed to get back out of the village afterwards? Shouldn't we go for a lie someone might actually _believe?_ " Sasuke asks halfway through, his pen stalling on the page instead of writing down the perfect phrasing Shikako had just come up with.

It doesn't actually _say_ "Sword of the Thunder God", obviously. Just "powerful Senju relic".

"It could happen," she says. "I mean... technically, since Sai broke me out of jail and I took point on our border crossing, you _have_ been following a criminal who has _a_ Sword of the Thunder God?"

"What?" Sasuke asks. " _Why? How?_ "

Sai asks, "Did you steal it?" and sounds only mildly curious. Shikako supposes that someone willing to casually commit treason for her wouldn't be very bothered by the thought of her doing other legally questionable things.

"I took it from a guy who stole it when we ran into him on a mission." Shikako gestures impatiently at the scoll. "You're going to _need_ the specifically nonspecific Senju relic excuse. Just write it down."

"Tsunade-sama would be very intent on retrieving her great-grandfather's sword if it were stolen," Sai agrees.

"Sure, that too," Shikako says.

Sasuke eyes her doubtfully, not really looking assured, but goes back to writing out what she'd suggested before, sharingan shining in the light of one of Shikako's LEDs as he reproduces her father's handwriting stroke for stroke. He's doing the signature when his pen suddenly stills again for a moment in the middle of writing the kanji before completing Shikaku's name.

He says, "My clone dismissed itself."

"Any response to Sai's attack from my—" Shikako cuts herself off and rephrases her question: "Has Shikaku done anything?"

"Shikaku hasn't made any moves that my clone was aware of, but that Tenzō guy showed up looking for you, Hikaku, and said you were last seen leaving the Nara compound, so..." So maybe they've got the Jōnin Commander on their side. Or maybe he's just biding his time.

"Did your mother believe that the clan was at risk?" Sai asks.

Sasuke shrugs. "Apparently Kakashi wasn't joking and the official story really _was_ that you kidnapped me, so it's probably fine politically. But Uzume-ba is pissed. She's going to throw you in The Pit the minute you get back to the village and train you into the ground." He says _the pit_ like a proper noun. _The Pit_. "Next time you're going to go on the run, let her know first."

"She would have insisted on joining me."

"Better than her sitting at home worrying and driving my mom crazy," Sasuke says, exasperated. "Besides, you're an Uchiha now, remember? It was stupid for you to plan to do this alone."

Sai doesn't respond to that except to nod tightly.

"Anyway," Sasuke goes on, "for now. I don't think Tsunade really wants to take on the Uchiha. And she's still dealing with the Yamanaka's reaction to one of their members being forced into performing a dangerous technique." Sasuke glances at Shikako, but when she doesn't add anything about Yamanaka Fū he asks her to elaborate on why the mission scroll only lists himself and Sai.

"There's a _chance_ we'll run into other Konoha ninja at the Wind border crossing who might know that I'm supposed to be dead," Shikako says, grateful for the change of topic. "I could put down a different name but..." She gestures at the Nara mon on the new shirt Tōshōdai had dug up for her. "...better for me to just sneak over the border in Sai's shadow."

They eat the rabbits Sasuke caught for dinner, negotiate with Kansoku, neaten the campsite, and then continue to travel through the night and into the morning because Konoha has likely come to the conclusion that Sai and Sasuke never returned to the village at all. It's easier to cross River than Shikako remembers, probably because the last time she crossed River it was chakra-exhausted, coming back from the newly-grown Garden of Life from Death, forced to move at a civilian pace and trying not to let how badly Shikamaru was freaking out freak _her_ out. This time they're able to move rapidly across the rivers and gorges, eschewing bridges and moving in a straight line to the border crossing.

Shikako enters shadow state and slips into Sai's shadow when they're an hour out from the Wind border.

"It's still weird to see you do that," Sasuke says to Sai's shadow.

Shikako creates a hand and arm of shadow, reaches out from Sai's shadow at an angle and waves cheerfully to Sasuke. It's not weird, she wants to say.

Sasuke seems unconvinced.

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* * *

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Traveling in shadow state is strange, as usual, but now comes with the addition of the Song of Gelel, which is easier to hear once she's incorporeal. The stone in her abdomen amplifying the Song, maybe, or else just a lack of physical sensation to provide distraction.

A patrol stops Sai and Sasuke before they're even in sight of the border post.

"We aren't expecting any Konoha missions to come through tonight," says the Sand squad leader. The voice comes out of the guy standing in front of them, but the chakra in the air says that they're actually talking to a puppet. The ninja piloting the puppet and throwing their voice via jutsu is hiding well-back. Shikako knows that this is usually thought of as cowardice on the part of puppeteers, but she suspects it's just... basic, simple caution.

 _Someone_ has to get back to the base to report if there's an attack.

"Our mission was sudden and urgent," Sasuke says.

"Uh-huh," says the Sand spokesperson. "We'll show you the way to the base."

The squad of Sand ninja escort them to the border post, which is a squat cement building that has a couple of basement levels that Shikako assumes she's not supposed to know about, since by all counts the border post has been made out to be a small operation. But she can sense the basements, or at least the people _in_ the basements. Assuming they haven't buried dozens of people twenty feet under their base, alive, somehow, the border outpost has barracks, cells, and maybe some kind of intelligence hub.

The detour to check in with the Suna ninja is annoying, but at least they don't have to wait for a meeting. They're immediately hustled in to see the jōnin in charge of the base, who turns out to be a middle-aged woman. The burnt-orange lines and swirls of her makeup are so crisp and flattering that Shikako immediately, retroactively recognizes that Kankurō is a novice at applying his facepaint.

"We're tracking a dangerous criminal who stole an item of considerable value and power from the Senju vaults," Sasuke tells her. "We have a summons tracking him; he crossed the border into Wind headed for the Dead Wastes. We're requesting access to Wind to pursue him and retrieve Senju property."

The base commander asks, "What manner of summons?"

"A crow."

One of the discreetly eavesdropping chakra signatures leaves, winding deeper into the base. Probably going to contact various patrol teams and border posts to try and confirm that a crow passed into northern Land of Wind from River recently. It's not as impossible as it sounds — a lone crow of a type more commonly seen in forests and grasslands headed into the desert probably would be noticed, and Sai had specifically told Kansoku _not_ to hide using a genjutsu.

"I will, of course, need to see your mission scroll," says the base commander.

Sasuke produces their forgery.

"And I don't suppose you'd be willing to wait here and let Suna hande the retrieval in Wind?"

Predictably, Sasuke says, "No. It's a Senju artifact. Konoha would take poorly to Sand's involvement."

"Very well," says the outpost commander, sounding irritated and resigned. As a last-ditch effort to assert some control over the situation, she adds: "But you'll have to wait for us to draw up a second mission scroll. Please go wait outside; it will only be a few minutes."

The delay isn't ideal — and would be _really_ annoying if their story about following a thief were true — but it's much less of a problem than being denied access to Land of Wind.

They go and wait outside the border post, in broad daylight, because no matter how unpleasant it is out there one can't just loiter in a foreign village's military base, especially with tensions so high. The sun bakes them even though they're barely properly into Wind yet. The base is at least arranged to block the worst of the wind that kicks up dust and sand even this close to River.

Sai and Sasuke find a place to loiter and try to look like decent, law-abiding citizens who would never think of forging mission paperwork to enter a foreign nation under false pretenses while smuggling a wanted criminal. Shikako reflects again that she's really turned their lives around, and probably not in a good way.

Before this had been kind of humorous, but here — observing the way the Suna ninja glance at Sai and Sasuke and then adjust themselves as if the very presence of Konoha ninja is reason enough to be not just observant but actively wary, ready for danger — Shikako thinks it's probably wrong that she's leaning to much on their loyalty to a dead girl. It's probably shameful and immoral. It's probably something that Shikako should stop doing, except that at this point it's much, much too late.

But maybe that's not fair to them. Maybe... well. They're basically adults. Still terribly young, only seventeen and sixteen respectively, but by all the other markers of adulthood in _this_ society, absolutely. It's only Shikako's life Before that makes her still look at them and think, even now: o _h god, I'm the adult in this situation and I'm failing them._

She's sure that native Shikako felt the same, felt that enormous pressure. Struggled to accept her tiny seven year old hands as her own, her tiny seven year old legs as her own, her tiny seven year old anything ever as really _herself_. The body, her body, the body of Nara Shikako... it's more of a piece of assistive technology that Shikako uses to interact with things and people and the world in general. It has no real meaning, even as its growth and development sweep her along. That's just feedback. An inevitable part of adapting to circumstances.

What she should have done was actually send them away once they got to the Nara farm. Standing in the deer barn before sunrise two days ago, listening to Tōshōdai sing off-key as he tended to the deer outside, Shikako should have told Sai and Sasuke to just... go home.

And yet. They certainly wouldn't appreciate her doubting having them along on the way to the Dead Wastes. They'd probably refuse to even accept that she _could_ have gotten them to leave. Now that they're here beside her... now that they know she _wants_ them here... it's too late.

But in that moment in the deer barn, Shikako could have sent them away and made it sound logical.

She could have said, _A diversion is what I need_.

She could have asked for, _A really good head start_.

She might have reasoned, _If they really,_ really _buy your story, then they'll never think to try and track me from here._

But instead she'd had them at her back on their walk down that tunnel, and when this is over, Sai and Sasuke will probably be in some kind of trouble, foreign or domestic, physical or political. And Shikako will be gone. She can't help them. She can barely help herself.

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* * *

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While they're waiting, and Shikako is wishing she hadn't dragged two people who owe her nothing into this, two familiar faces turn up.

Kankurō is looking... a little worse for wear. Not quite as well-equipped as she's expecting, a little care-worn and exhausted. His makeup is smudged. Gaara looks like Gaara always does, more or less, except that he keeps his eyes down more than she'd expect. Earning his place in the village, Shikako sees, hasn't been easy for him. Hasn't happened at all, even, since he's apparently stranded out at this base. The other Suna ninja give him a wide berth.

"You," Kankurō scoffs at Sasuke. "You just keep turning up."

"Just admit you're happy to see me," Sasuke shoots back, in a tone Shikako has never heard her Sasuke from home use for Kankurō — the same tone he uses to shit talk Kiba.

Gaara doesn't speak, but looks at Sai.

Kankurō's eyes flick over to look at him too. "Naruto's not back yet, I guess."

"Yeah, he'll be pissed he missed you again," Sasuke says. "I'm sure you'll hear about how unfair it is next time you see him."

Kankurō laughs. It's an easing of stress, a relaxing into old patterns, like maybe he wasn't sure of the reception he'd get from Sasuke.

"This is my cousin, Uchiha Hikaku," Sasuke adds. Sasuke introduces Kankurō and Gaara, although Sai surely knows who they are given their political importance. Or, their _former_ political importance, maybe.

Sai nods in greeting. He doesn't react to Gaara, but Shikako figures either he's reacting to how relaxed _Sasuke_ is or Gaara's sane disposition has had time to make the gossip and intel rounds.

"Temari...?" Sasuke asks, letting the question hang, not completing it. He and Temari are probably friends, or at least friendly, but asking after the location of a foreign jōnin — Temari is probably a jōnin, at this age — is something to be approached cautiously, especially in the apparent political climate Sasuke has to navigate.

"Politics," Kankurō says vaguely, with a sweep of the hand like he's brushing the topic of conversation away. He waggles his eyes at Sasuke, though, and says, "But I'll tell her you asked if you promise me I can plan the wedding."

Sasuke scowls at him. "I'll tell Naruto you're in love with him," Sasuke threatens.

Kankurō pulls a horrified face. "You _wouldn't_ ," he asserts, but drops off teasing Sasuke and gets down to the business of all ninja: gossip.

With familiarity and no small amount of enjoyment, he and Sasuke perform the typical information swap. Sasuke fills Kankurō in on conditions in Land of Rivers, including news of a washed-out bridge, and Kankurō shares a fairly detailed weather forecast for the next several days. Kankurō doesn't elaborate on what kind of "politics" have kept Temari away, if indeed that was even the truth, but Sasuke doesn't seem bothered by the lack of elaboration.

A chūnin comes outside with their new scroll and the forged Konoha scroll. He delivers a long explanation of the exact parameters of their foray deeper into Wind — essentially that they're to go directly to the Dead Wastes, apprehend the thief, and return to this base on their way out of Wind — and then hands the scrolls over to Sasuke.

He doesn't look at Gaara or Kankurō at all, much less address them, only turning away immediately and making his way back inside as if Sasuke and Sai had been the only people there at all.

Neither Kankurō or Gaara react like being snubbed is new or upsetting. Kankurō just smoothly switches topics while the chūnin walks away. He asks, "Some nutcase really stole something from the Leaf and thought it would be best to hide in the Dead Wastes? Because they're literally, actually cursed, you know. Corpses don't rot there."

"I mean I think it's less that the guy was going there and more that we _drove him_ there, tracking him with summons," Sasuke muses. "He seems to think we wouldn't or couldn't follow him into the Dead Wastes."

"Well, _Suna_ ninja wouldn't," Kankurō admits. "Almost everyone who goes into the Dead Wastes dies, and there's no point in trying to track and fight someone there. We usually just drive people in there and wait around on the borders to confirm they're dead."

A new Sand ninja sticks their head out of the door of the base and yells that Kankurō has a mission. Kankurō's shoulders, which had relaxed completely while talking to Sasuke, tighten again. He claps a hand on Gaara's shoulder, nods to Sasuke, and says, "See you around, Sasuke."

He looks tired, walking away into the base, but Shikako can't help him any more than she can help Sasuke and Sai.

Gaara watches him go for a moment and then turns back to look at Sasuke and Sai. He says, "You should be careful."

Sasuke nods. "We will," he promises, probably aided in feeling like he's not lying because he knows there's no actual thief to catch, no enemy waiting for them.

Well, no enemy until he and Sai get back to Konoha.

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* * *

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Gelel's music swells and swells as they leave the River-Wind border behind, headed mostly north and a little west. Shikako is glad to be hiding in Sai's shadow rather than trying to pilot her own body across the desert, because she can hardly hear herself think.

In a slight concession to environmental factors, and because pursuit from Konoha is now highly unlikely to make much of a difference, Sasuke and Sai don't move at the all-out sprint that they'd kept up through Land of Fire and Land of River and, when the hottest part of the day hits, they settle down in what scant shade can be made with a quick earth jutsu to rest. Shikako finally slides out of Sai's shadow, unaccountably exhausted by having done nothing but observe the two Uchiha and listen to Gelel's song for hours.

Outside of shadow state, Gelel is no less distracting, although the effect is more like the reverberations of a bell that's been struck hard than the sound of Gelel itself.

"My sensing is completely useless," Shikako says when they've all fed and watered themselves.

Sai blinks at her. "Sensing is usually very useful," he offers.

"I mean I can't sense anything useful right now. The natural energy is... loud."

Sasuke and Sai both look at her skeptically. "Is that even a thing?" Sasuke asks.

"Yeah," Shikako says. "It's really annoying." And dangerous, but there's nothing she can do to stop it.

Sai asks, "Are you be able to take a watch shift?"

If Shikako says no, they'll split the day evenly with no complaints, she knows. Pragmatically, if someone can't give a watch shift the right amount of attention it's better for the rest to miss out on some sleep. Less pragmatically, both of them have proven themselves willing to do much more problematic things for her than this without complaint.

But what's really important is: does Shikako think she can pay enough attention around the Song of Gelel to keep watch?

"It's better out of shadow state," Shikako says. "I could take last shift."

When Sai wakes her for that shift, Shikako finds that her entire body feels like a piano wire, tense and ready to harmonize with the Song still thrumming through the ground, with the wind, humming along to itself in the air she sucks into her lungs. But it's not as overwhelming as it was in shadow state, even if her sensing is still shot for everything except telling exactly what direction Gelel is in, so she trades places with Sai so he can catch the second half of his allotted sleep.

As the sun starts to set, Sai and Sasuke both stir of their own accord before she has to wake them. Shikako can trust herself not to trip over her own two feet but still can't sense anything, so she ends up feeling half-blind as they run through the desert, unable to tell whether or not there's anyone else around.

As sand sea fades into canyons and bare rock, Shikako also ends up having to take the lead, because although Sasuke and Sai are aware of vaguely what direction the Dead Wastes are in, Shikako's the only one who's actually _been_ there, although she guides them much less by memory than by the sense-feel of Gelel's location.

At the edge of the Dead Wastes, Kansoku flutters down from some high-up, shaded perch to land on Sai's shoulder.

"I hate this place," Kansoku tells Sai. "Never make me sit around out here again."

"Shikako has extra wire for you," Sai says.

Kansoku looks _deeply_ miserable, so Shikako forks over twice the previously agreed upon payment. He disappears in a puff of smoke.

"Why do you even carry around that much?" Sasuke asks her as they start into the Dead Wastes. He's probably caught that it's the same kind he prefers.

"I just buy everything in bulk," Shikako says. "It's not like I'm going to run out of space."

Sasuke replies, but Shikako lets the conversation fall away, concentrating instead on trying to zero in on the origin of the song thundering through her head. Necessarily this involves a good deal of backtracking because Shikako's not going to attempt to earth-walk through solid stone feeling as out of sorts as she does.

Shikako wishes they'd managed to drag Gaara along somehow. He'd made discovering an ancient, lost temple so _easy_ last time.

When they do find it, they find it from above. There's a thin crag in the ground at Shikako's feet, Gelel's song thrumming so strongly up through the air and rock that it practically makes Shikako's knees weak. Shikako means to say something, anything, to let Sasuke and Sai know she's found it, but the words slips away from her. Instead, she wordlessly uses an earth jutsu to pry enough earth away so that they can slip underground.

The jutsu should be draining — she's essentially using Earth Wall to peel up a good chunk of rock in a place that sucks chakra away greedily the moment it's outside one's body — but instead it feels easier than usual, and rather than making a hole just big enough for them to drop through, she creates a substantial opening Instead of dropping blindly into the darkness of the cave, she's able to maneuver herself through the hole such that she ends up standing upside on the ceiling of the cavern hiding the Gelel temple, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the new light conditions.

Sai and Sasuke quickly join her while she's struggling to ignore the way using chakra to cling to the rock of the cave ceiling makes her chakra coils feel Gelel's song like heavy base. The shaft of light from Shikako's hole highlights a particles of dust kicked up by her earth jutsu but quickly fades into the dim lighting of the rest of the cave. Below, the temple is visible, looking old and unstable.

Sai asks, "Are Wind temples known for time-space seals the way the Fire Temple is adept at defensive seals?"

"Land of Wind doesn't _have_ temples," Sasuke says. "They don't pray like that."

Shikako doesn't say anything. The less they know, the better, probably. Besides, information about the long-dead civilization that created this isn't really relevant. She also considers asking Sasuke why he knows anything at all about religion in Land of Wind, but it seems like the answer is _probably_ Kankurō and it's hard to pay attention to conversation, anyway.

They make their way to the ground with more expediency than caution.

"Is this the thing messing up your sensing?" Sasuke asks.

"Inside." She stumbles on, not missing the concerned looks Sasuke and Sai trade over her slightly clumsy movements but unable to slow down to assure them that she's fine. She doesn't _know_ that she's fine, only knows that she has to get to the room with the stone, the room with the seals. She leads them through the dingy, plain upper portions of the temple. Through hallways, down some stairs.

When they enter the better-lit temple room, all of its carvings pristine and beautiful still, light emitting from nowhere in particular, Shikako gestures at the carvings. "Seals. Uh, try not to touch anything."

Sasuke flicks his Sharingan on to look at the seal himself and then winces and turns it off, blinking. "Too bright to even look at," he advises Sai.

There's a lot of power here, power she'll need to get home.

The seal consists largely of lines of symbols worked into solid stone with no visible toolmarks. Shikako knows the basics of how the seal works and why it was made and even a little of how it was constructed from the Book of Gelel, but the Book wasn't an instruction manual and besides which whoever had written it hadn't been thinking about using the seal as a battery to fling people across universes.

Figuring out how to access Gelel's power without accessing Gelel wouldn't be impossible, but now that she's looking at the seal again, Shikako has to acknowledge to herself that it's incredibly impractical. It would take a _long_ time. Years, or more likely decades, and that's too long to waste.

"Is it the stone?" Sasuke asks. _Is the stone the thing that's going to help you get home?_ is what he means, and it's the obvious question, really — the stone is literally on a pedestal, and Shikako has been stalled in this room staring blankly at it for several minutes.

"The stone is a weapon." Each step closer to the Stone of Gelel makes the Song louder, stronger. The easiest and most immediately obvious thing to do _would_ be to grab the Stone of Gelel and see what that does, but Shikako is leery of any plan that involves snatching up powerful objects whose purpose and mechanics she doesn't understand.

Sasuke is saying, "A weapon that does _what?_ " and she can barely hear him, can't even glance at him.

Distracted, Shikako says, "It could solve a lot of problems. It could wipe this whole place off the map."

A slightly less awful plan is to go into shadow state and see if using her Gelel stone this close to Gelel's center does anything. Which is still just blind fumbling, but does mean delaying picking up the Stone of Gelel. Which is safest? Which is most likely to get results? The Song of Gelel soars to a fever pitch, waiting for Shikako to choose, but the decision is taken away from her.

Kankurō drops from the ceiling, whatever concealment jutsu it is that Sand puppeteers use falling away just as he hits the ground, and lands in front of the pedestal. He snatches the Stone of Gelel up and holds it in a clenched fist.

"You know," Kankurō muses, "I'm feeling kind of betrayed."

Parsing this sudden change is like slogging through chest-deep mud. Kankurō had been called away for a mission shortly before they left the Sand border post. Kankurō had been called away for _this_ mission, to follow them, to make sure Sai and Sasuke were really doing what their mission scroll claimed. There are political implications here — has Kankurō had the chance to report anything? Hopefully not — but Shikako is more struck by the interpersonal ones.

Kankurō does look betrayed, is the thing. He looks sick to his stomach, clutching the Stone of Gelel and looking right at Sasuke. He looks terrified, holding a weapon he doesn't know how to use and talking to three enemies. Does he have back up? He doesn't look like he thinks he has back up.

Shikako should say something, but she can barely put coherent sentences together in her own head at the moment, let alone outloud, as the power beginning to pour into Kankurō also pours out of him, washes over her, drowns everything else out.

"Kankurō," Sasuke starts.

"I don't want to hear it," Kankurō says.

 _This is a misunderstanding_ , Shikako starts to say, but she only gets as far as saying, "This—"

What they've all forgotten is that you're not supposed to pay attention to the puppet master if you don't know where his puppet is.

A limb made of lacquered wood slides a blade across Shikako's throat. She lives just long enough to catch the poisoned shimer of Karasu's wrist-blade, appreciate that she won't have to experience dying by Kankurō's poison, and hear Sai shout her name like the world is ending.


	7. part 6

Last chapter! Thank you to SQ and Pepper for betaing and Morne for motivation.

* * *

Shikako's hands come up to her throat, although she knows already that she's dead, that she doesn't have the focus or the time to even shift into shadow state. The blade has caught her artery and her windpipe; trying to choke out one last breath is hopeless.

"Everyone has been saying that we can't trust the Leaf," Kankurō is saying, quiet and grim, as Gelel's field of stars fills Shikako's head, as her physical body hits its knees.

She twists as she falls. She can see Sai and Sasuke's faces. She can see the way their eyes have spun into the complex patterns of the Mangekyou Sharingan.

Sai attacks Karasu, driving the puppet back, and Sasuke leaps forward, towards her, although she doesn't know what he expects to be able to do about a slit throat.

Both of them have drawn their swords, and to Shikako's surprise it's Sai who takes the forward position and attacks, not Sasuke. It's not that Shikako's version of Sai at home couldn't attack Kankurō, though Shikako's not sure who she'd bet on in that fight. But her Sai at home is... cautious. Careful. Prone to hanging back with his ink creatures when fighting against a relatively unknown or powerful opponent. Especially an opponent as likely to use poison as a Suna puppeteer.

But then, she's never seen grief or rage on her Sai's face before. Never seen him leap into a fight based on emotion, never heard him shout anything, much less her name.

Her blood fills the small, carved symbols on the floor. They press into her cheek. Dying like this is horrible, quick and slow at the same time, even with the comforting presence of Gelel pulling at her to fall back into the merger that had saved her life once before. It's just hard to let go — hard to trust that things will turn out fine if she closes her eyes and really surrenders to the field of stars.

Behind Shikako, Sai completes what sounds like a series of rapid, complex attacks against the puppet that are all neatly deflected. She can feel Kankurō controlling the puppet, dozens of chakra strings pulled rapid-fire to match Sai's blistering speed. The chakra strings are subtle, minimalist things, but in the chakra-dry air of the Dead Wastes they stick out like neon to Shikako's chakra sense, highlighted and unignorable. Gelel wicks chakra away from them in thin but frequent wisps, like it's trying to unravel the strings; the cost to Kankurō's reserves must be incredible.

Sai says, "Yatagarasu," and his sword, alight with chakra, lashes out. If Shikako hadn't been half-sunk into Gelel it might have felt like any other technique, but she can feel the way his eyes burn with power that isn't just chakra, the way everything bends around Sai's sword strikes.

Karasu is hit perfectly at the joints and seams and at the places where Kankurō's chakra strings latch onto the puppet. It bursts apart into hundreds of fragments, splintering like cheap kindling. Kankurō swears vividly and inventively; Shikako can hear the panic crawling up his throat. Kankurō must know that at this rate he'll be dead in minutes.

Then Sasuke is above Shikako, being distracting, pressing his hands to her throat. He's trying to stem the flow of blood. He's saying, "Shikako, Shikako, hold on, Sakura taught me — she showed me—"

To Shikako's surprise, Sasuke's hands light up with flickering medical chakra, a brute-forced version of the Mystic Palm technique. Sasuke's clumsy use of the jutsu wastes chakra and obviously takes an enormous amount of concentration, but he buckles down, he grits his teeth, he lets his chakra sink into her skin like she isn't already mostly dead.

It's useless, though, and Shikako is running out of time. Sasuke won't be able to fix her throat, and Sai is closing in on Kankurō now.

Sai says the name of his Mangekyou technique again, Yatagarasu, the three-legged crow. Kankurō is doomed; either he'll be painted across the temple's back wall like a Jackson Pollock or, worse, Sai will hit the Stone of Gelel that Kankurō is still clutching, inert, in one hand. Kankurō dying is preferable to Kankurō dying and the whole continent being swallowed by the backlash from the Gelel stone being broken, but Kankurō dying still isn't ideal and there's no way to be sure that Sai will think to avoid the stone. In fact, as powerful as it is, the stone may seem an extremely tempting target.

Each Yatagarasu strike is comprised of multiple movements, sword strikes and chakra bursts. Shikako can feel the Yatagarasu strike cleaving through reality already, something otherworldly and even older than Gelel reaching through the cracks, guiding Sai's sword and chakra. She can feel Sai's killing intent, enraged and frigid, rolling over the room like a thick fog.

The Mystic Palm at her throat peters out. Sasuke is crying, Shikako realizes. His tears overflow. They land on her face — the smell of blood is thick — Sai's first sword blow severs one of Kankurō's arms at the bicep —

Shikako surrenders completely to Gelel.

Last time Gelel had been so overwhelming Shikako might have lost herself without Shikamaru there to pull her back. This time — this time it's still overwhelming, still threatens to subsume her, but the field of stars is familiar. The alien slide of Gelel's power against and into her own is like the feeling of pulling her chakra in and out of her Gelel stone, but bigger and deeper.

And besides... since she was last in this position with Gelel, Shikako has met a second god. After spitting in Jashin's face, telling Gelel no will be easy.

Gelel's light floods the temple, and Shikako lets herself rise to meet the music. It sweeps her along and into the stars — Kankurō and Sai and Sasuke are all points of light, none of them as bright as Naruto or Gaara had been. When everything is vast and small at the same time, all of Land of Wind laid out plain and bare, she slides into place and becomes Gelel-and-Shikako.

Not separate. Not together. Balancing. A polite dance:

come deeper, says Gelel.

not yet, replies Shikako — and it's not as if time means anything to Gelel, not really. Later is just as good as immediately. The future will arrive soon enough.

Gelel-and-Shikako's manifestation hasn't brought Sai to a halt. He's guided by his own divine light, his technique's titular god, Yatagarasu, and as he moves deeper into each strike he stops being Sai and becomes Sai-and-Yatagarasu, the both of them bent to one task, one path, one goal.

It's beautiful, and it's going to kill Kankurō. It's already killed him, if nothing is done, because even if he were to escape Sai-and-Yatagarasu's death blow, he's bleeding quickly from an arm that's now a few inches of muscle and skin away from being a stump.

The mostly-severed arm is the one he'd used to pick up the Gelel stone. His hand still clutches the rock. Sai-and-Yatagarasu's death blow closes in, but Yatagarasu's path has definitely overlooked the presence of a minor god.

Gelel-and-Shikako pour power into the Gelel stone Kankurō is holding, a piece of reality even easier to manipulate than anything else in the Dead Wastes. They can't remove Kankurō from the path of Sai-and-Yatagarasu's death blow, it has to connect, and Kankurō definitely dies — but not for long.

Life and death happen in the Dead Wastes only on Gelel-and-Shikako's whims. They hold Kankurō's body in its death state for a split second, but they don't let his light go out; they don't let the Shinigami close. Whatever the books may say, Gelel-and-Shikako know that Kankurō is supposed to live. He has work to do.

They take Sai's sword so that he can't strike again, so that it won't interfere with fixing Kankurō's body, and with hands that are more feeling than real, Gelel-and-Shikako press Kankurō's wounds together and remind them of what it's like to be whole, and safe, and right. Don't you remember? Gelel croons to the blood and the bone. You go like this, you have a job, a duty.

The Shikako parts of Gelel-and-Shikako can remember the jittery feeling of trying to come back into her own body after being subsumed and she doesn't want to do that to Kankurō. They don't want to do that to Kankurō, although the Gelel parts don't really understand why, even as Gelel-and-Shikako sweep Kankurō away with light and sound and a particular care not to merge with him too much, not to drown him in the ebb and flow.

A light, careful touch. They settle him back into his body. He's older and a little more well-worn than the Kankurō that Gelel-and-Shikako had touched briefly last time, but not so different. Still a friend. Still important.

There are other things to fix, too. Gelel-and-Shikako politely smooths out the fabric of everything where Sai-and-Yatagarasu have upset it. They dismantle the temple, like they had before, folding the seal away and away and away beneath the earth, twisting and warping and breaking it because the physical thing hasn't mattered for literal ages but it would be dangerous to leave it laying around. In the temples place they begin to peel back layers of rock, let forth generous streams of water, call out to everything that it must wake up, must come forth and populate this place, Gelel's domain, the Garden of Life from Death.

Everything is paused, halted, completely clear and safe. Shikako-and-Gelel control everything. Yatagarasu is gone. Gelel-and-Shikako reach out with hands-that-aren't to sooth the overworked optical nerves behind Sai's eyes that are making him weep dark blood down his cheeks. They can't sooth Sasuke's tears the same way, but they can finesse his eyes the same way, and they can touch his and Sai's light. Gelel-and-Shikako can say, I'm not dead, except Gelel has no words and Shikako has no mouth.

Sai-and-Yatagarasu — they had worked differently. Yatagarasu had reached through Sai's body to affect reality. Sai had kept his corporeal form. Shikako's not interested in burning her eyes out but maybe, if they're careful, if Gelel-and-Shikako arrange things just right...

They become Shikako-and-Gelel, and their feet touch the floor. Their hands flex and grasp. They can grab Sasuke's hands (tacky with blood — gross — best to just get rid of that —) and pull him to his feet.

"I'm okay," Shikako-and-Gelel say. "It's okay." Shikako-and-Gelel hug Sasuke tight. They press their face into Sasuke's shoulder. "Thank you," they say, and then they turn to Sai, who's already close, and yank him into the hug as well.

Sai shudders and shakes. Sai falls apart, so Shikako-and-Gelel help him hold together.

"You died," Sasuke states blankly into the air above Shikako-and-Gelel's head.

"It's a bad habit of mine," Shikako-and-Gelel agree.

Sasuke's hands tighten into fists in the back of their shirt — they have a shirt again, it came with the body, clothes are important — and he says, "I felt it."

"I'm sorry," Shikako-and-Gelel say awkwardly. It feels inadequate, like always. And also —

Instead of joining in on the conversation, Sai is looking at Kankurō, who's on his knees and speechless.

Shikako-and-Gelel can feel his terror as easily as they can feel Sasuke's body heat. They can feel his resignation. They smile at him.

"It was a misunderstanding," they assure Kankurō — but that's not enough.

Sai has broken from the impromptu hug. He has Sasuke's sword, picked up off the ground at some point. "He killed you," Sai says flatly. "He should pay." Yatagarasu is spinning his eyes again.

Shikako struggles for words; Gelel twists hard at the air far above their heads. With a crack of thunder, it begins to rain.

Right. There are words for this. Good words. They say: "In the course of justice none of us should see salvation."

Sai turns back. Hair plastered to his face he looks at them — this whole time he's seemed so much older, but he's not, really. He's not old at all, and he's still cracked through with fault lines, and his face is pale when he says, "The quality of mercy is — is not strained, it..." and then seems to fumble for more words.

Shikako-and-Gelel complete the rest for Sai — not the whole poem, just as much as Shikako had told the others during the invasion. Just enough to make sure Kankurō and Sasuke can follow along. Just enough to teach the lesson again.

Did the native Shikako translate the entire poem? Does Shikako even really want to know?

Better to think about anything else. Better to think about Kankurō, still on his knees but at least not quite so terrified. Better to break away from Sasuke and Sai and go to give Kankurō a hand up.

"You said this was a weapon," Kankurō tells them, sounding fairly numb with shock. Maybe they didn't do a very good job putting him back in his skin after all.

"Anything is a weapon," Shikako-and-Gelel remind him. He's a ninja, he should know that. "I'm just trying to get home... and do some landscaping, I guess."

"But you had — you had something for me to do." Kankurō makes a vague gesture. "I don't remember what — and if it's against Suna, you should just kill me, because I would never—"

It's better to just show him. Shikako-and-Gelel reach out and gently, gently press into his head the knowledge that Gaara will be Kazekage. Should be Kazekage. Must be. It's not an order, he's not compelled, it's only... a connection. A way to share the knowledge.

"You don't even know him," Kankurō chokes out as he's flooded with her certainty that Sabaku no Gaara will be Godaime Kazekage and save Sand from itself.

"He's my friend," Shikako-and-Gelel correct. They can remember — and they accidentally show Kankurō — the feeling of the sword sliding through her chest, watching Gaara protect his siblings, the way it had felt to soothe Shukaku, the comforting feeling of Gaara's sand catching her mid-air and delivering her safely back to the ground.

It's the last that seems to really knock the breath out of Kankurō. The trust. The absolutely certainty. It's important that he understand.

They know a version of Gaara. They know that any version of Gaara will only be what Sand makes of him. Gaara — Gaara is all the way back at the border and she can feel him, backing restlessly on the roof of the Sand outpost, alone and tense and aimless. He should be Kazekage already —

I want to go home, Shikako thinks, because that's the deepest, most important thought she has at the moment, and it's connected to all sorts of feelings Gelel can't fathom, the last true outpost of just Shikako, no Gelel added. Wanting to stay, that had been a harder position to keep, because it wasn't like being swallowed by Gelel would be dying, exactly. But going home, that was specific. Going home was something Shikako could only do if Gelel let her go.

home? Gelel wonders. It could probably riffle through Shikako's entire being like browsing a magazine, but instead it stretches out and out and out, looking for "home" for Shikako, waiting for her to point it out.

But Shikako can't, not even when its awareness brushes over this universe's Konoha. There's something there, in the Uchiha district: two small areas that Gelel can only brush the edges of, two small areas that feel as immediately recognizably Shikako as Shikako's own hands. Incense burns in both, smoke curling lazily through the air, and Shikako can twist and pull the air there to guide the smoke into unusual shapes. They're shrines, Shikako thinks, but she shies away from the logical conclusion that follows.

They're not home, and that's what matters. They're not home and Gelel needs to understand that. Words would be incapable of explaining, so the only thing to do is to sink deeper into Gelel, until her memories of home, and Jashin, and being so very terribly lost are Gelel's feelings. Until they're both adrift, and staving off grief with the thought of moving forward, and Gelel can perfectly capture the feeling of the seal Shikako had laid with her tear and everything that had gone into it.

home, Shikako thinks.

home, Gelel agrees.

Shikako forgets to say goodbye.

* * *

A door opens, a door shuts. There's light and song and when it's over she's laying in a meadow and she can't hear Gelel anymore — she's alone in her own skin, alone in her surroundings. She can't sense anyone nearby, only the faint starlight pinpricks of animals. Birds sing in the trees.

Shikako's neck is covered in blood, her new Nara shirt soaked with it at the collar. She pulls out water and a cloth to clean up with and a new shirt and changes before she even looks around. There's a new scar on her throat, thin and careful and deadly — at least Kankurō keeps his puppet's blades sharp.

She doesn't know where she is.

Not the Garden, not anywhere near Land of Wind — the trees around her are evergreen pines. Land of Hot Springs, maybe, because that would make the most sense, but she has to look for a settlement, she has to be sure. She searches mostly south, because she's definitely farther north than Konoha's climate.

A few miles on, she feels natural chakra in the ground building up for almost an hour and a half, then suddenly release when she's almost gotten to the source. A geyser of boiling water flings itself into the air to the south, ten stories tall. When it settles, the natural energy begins building again.

There's a small shrine settled around the geyser. The style of the shrine is a traditional style favored in the northeast Land of Fire, in Land of Hot Springs, and up into Land of Frost. Given the geyser, Shikako can be confident that going south will mean hitting the northern border of Land of Fire sooner or later, but she stops for directions even still.

It would be good to figure out what the date is. It seems to still be summer, not quite into the worst of the dry season, but how long has she been missing? How difficult will reintegration be? It's doubtful that the shrine will have any news of the Konoha-Cloud conflict, but they'll know more than they think they do.

The shrine is staffed by a single shrine maiden whose energy melds with the geyser's so completely that Shikako would have missed her if not for her life energy. The miko is wary, tense — seems to find something off about Shikako, maybe can tell that she's a foreign ninja — but answers questions easily.

When Shikako casually inquires about the date, the miko gives her an answer using an old-fashioned calendar. It's annoying to convert it in her head, but rural villages and, yes, shrines still use it — the Fire Temple had used the same calendar system, unchanging from hundreds of years before Konoha had been founded.

It's only August, only a bare month after Shikako left for her mission with Aoba. It feels so much longer — but it hasn't even been that long for Shikako. Shikamaru is now several weeks older than her.

Shikako asks some more leading questions, but the miko doesn't know anything about a recent upset at a local temple, and only seems to get more and more uncomfortable. Better for Shikako to cut her losses; she doesn't dare press for information about the Village Hidden in the Hot Springs. It had been an S-Rank mission, after all. An S-Rank mission that Shikako is technically still on.

Time to just head for Konoha and find out how bad the damage is when she gets there.

She expects a border patrol to stop her but... there's no one. There's no border patrol — there's no border, no road. She searches the area where she and Aoba had crossed, where she remembers the curve of the land and the shape of the crest of a nearby hill, but the road they'd taken is just a dirt track, a game trail. It's not even wide enough for a wagon.

Shikako doesn't know where the outposts should be here and anyway... she wants to put it off. She heads straight for Konoha.

The mountain's face is blank, just a cliff. The valley is empty — the river doesn't even run a recognizable course. There's an oxbow where there shouldn't be, a gentle curve where it should run straight.

Konoha isn't here. She's not home.

* * *

Next up is Lone Wolf, but I'm afraid I just can't stand the thought of posting another long work on , so it's only going to be up on AO3, I hope you all understand!

And speaking of AO3, maybe you're interested in the Dreaming of Sunshine Exchange I'm running. It's a low-minimum secret santa fanwork exchange for podfic, meta, fanfiction, and fanart based on DoS! As of posting this there's about two days of nominations left (Don't know what that means? Don't worry, there's an FAQ!) and then sign ups will be running March 23rd-30th. I would love to have lot of people join. It requires an AO3 account, but we can definitely get you an invite if you need one. More info on the dreamingofsunshine dreamwidth!


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